Display problem for Redhat 9 new installation

Until you get the display working you'll want to tell the system to only go to runlevel 3 (text mode). This can be done by switching to an alternate console (Ctrl-Alt-F2), logging in as root and executing 'telinit 3'. Reboot and the system will come up in text mode.

If the video is so hosed up that alternate consoles don't work you can boot into single user mode ('linux single' at the Lilo prompt) and edit /etc/inittab to set:

id:3:initdefault:

Then reboot and you'll be in text mode.

Once in text mode you should be able to use redhat-config-xfree86 to set up X. 2D support should work with that card, but 3D stuff probably won't. If your monitor isn't listed you can probably use a Generic LCD or LapTop LCD. Start with low resolutions and work your way up. To exactly match your monitor you can try to find it's specs with a web search and set those in the config tool.

still can't mate. can't even switch to single mode (i don't know how as it is using grub) and it goes straight to heaps of junk (like error msg) keeps on scrolling on the screen.

anyone else?

Using Grub you can get to single user mode by hitting 'a' at the Grub screen, then typing " single" (note the leading space), and hitting return.

i've managed to get in to single mode, but it's not "3", it's "1". I've boot to other distro that allows me to boot linux and then i edited the file that you've mentioned. Unfortunately, once i get to single user mode, and try to execute that redhat-config-xfree86config, something pops up, but unable to display it and then an error shows up after the pop up dissapeared.

anyone else has any suggestion?

You won't be able to do any reconfig of X from single user mode. But from there you can edit /etc/inittab to set the default runl level to 3. Then after you exit from single user mode & reboot you'll have a text mode login and can work on the video problem.

i get the same problem as before, heaps of junk show up and keeps on scrolling on the screen.

by the way, i can edit the settings from another "run from CD" linux. is there any way that i can change the video settings that way?

>  i get the same problem as before, heaps of junk show up and keeps on scrolling on the screen.

Okay, since the system should be in run level three now any errors scrolling on the screen would be an indication that RedHat is having a problem with the basic hardware. To begin to tell you what that might be we are going to have to know what those messages say. If enough of the system is running you should be able to use the Scroll Lock or Ctrl-S to stop the scrolling so that you can copy down a sample. I'd guess that it is the same errors being repeated over and over.

yeah you are right it's the same error as before when i look at it closely, but i still can't stop it. None of Scroll Lock/Ctrl+S works.

Can you give us an approximation of what the errors are? Or any clues as to what they seem to be about?

i saw some USB* then some pnp stuffs. can't really read it as i cannot pause it. When i tried it using vmware and using the partition that i've installed redhat on as the hard disk, it works fine. So, if the problem cannot be solved, i might either switch to fedora or other distro of linux or in the worst case use vmware to boot it.

if anyone else has any suggestion, please feel free to suggest as i would really like to get it to work even just for curiousity why it doesn't work.

thanks