rh9: unable to login via gui
 

I have RHL9 installed. I upgraded OPenOffice, Mozilla, Evolution and used up2date to upgrade kernel version to 2.4.20-8 recently and all was well when I left the machine. When I tried to boot the system again several weeks later it booted up to the gui login screen quite well. Upon entering a user and password (root or a normal user) the systems begins to login and then displays the following message:

"Your session only lasted less than 10 seconds. If you have not logged out yourself, this could mean that there is some installation problem or that you may be out of diskspace. Try logging in with one of the failsafe sessions to see if you can fix this problem."

I can switch to a text screen and login with no difficulty. I just cannot access the gui (Gnome) and have no idea how to begin debugging this problem. Suggestions?

FYI:
df -h says that I have 14GB free on / and 81MB on /boot.

free -m shows 361 free out of 502MB and 1019 of 1019MB on the swap drive.

I tried to find a log file with a applicable message.

I tried changing inittab to 3 and running startx (startx fails but I do not see why).

Tried booting from floppy with same login result.

Will appreciate any help or suggestions. Not very knowledgeable about linux although I am rather technically able in general with computers.

I think it may have something to do with the new kernel and your video card driver. Try going to your video card manufacturers website and downloading and installing a driver from there and see if it helps at all.

i can't understand why your kernel version is 2.4.20-8 after update.as if rh9's version is 2.4.20-8,why do you update kernel as same old kernel?

To aeolus: you caught me in error. I upgraded from the above-mentioned kernal to 2.4.20-28.9.

My video card is an ATI 3D Rage Pro Turbo AGP which Linux sees as a ATI Mach 64. I looked for updated drivers but there were none. If that is the root of the problem, I am screwed until I can afford another vid-card.

Anyone have an idea how to debug this to determine where the problem lies? I need step-by-step instructions though.

I appreciate that you guys are thinking about this and responding.