I recently installed Red Hat Enterprise Linux on my computer. Everything worked fine until I installed some updates. After I installed them, Linux detected my video card (which previously it just labeled generic) with Kudzo on startup. And the problem is that after I login it freezes on the first screen after the login screen. I'm not sure if an update messed something up or what.

My plan: I can however sucessfully login in text mode. Is there a way to start Gnome in text mode, then switch back?

Gnome is a desktop. It runs in conjunction with a window manager. All this requires running X server.
So, you have to reconfigure your X server to make it work with your new display driver. Also, there is probably a backup file with your previous X configuration, you can use it as last resort.

So how do i reconfigure my X server?

Run "system-config-display".

excuse me .. i am a total noobie

but how do i " run " system-config-display" " from the command line $?

is it the case that i can only do so from inside gnome ?

my problem is that startx from $ fails to bring up any gui. it just halts on an error. the reason is because when mandrake v81 was setting up gnome it failed to find a workable driver for my neomagic 128 laptop video card and then crashed out of the install with a bad selection (i chose the "unlisted card" driver but then the installer failed to test the system properly, then it refused to let me cancel the install and just bungled onwards).

so.. how do i run th startx configuration program from $?
or do i have to endure another 4 hour sof linux nstallation just to try to work out 1 click...?