Red Hat Problem

[fatboyjim]

Hi

After installing RedHat Linux tonight I have only ONE problem

I chose USE GRAPHICAL LOGIN for some reason (I'm a real newbie for Linux) but now when it gets to login it for one second comes up with a text option (as usual)

But then the whole screen just flashes (Text disappears for a second then reappears - you know what I mean)

Is there any way I can put the video down to about 800x600 or something just for a while, that may be the problem



Thanks,

[OOPS!]

Jim,

I haven't used RH in a while, but it sounds like your x-server is toast. I would reboot to the CLI and log in as root and rerun xf86setup. Most of the time, it's the video card that isn't configured right.

If I remember right I think that RH defaults to 800x600 for the login screen. A good lesson to boot to run level 3 ain't it .


OOPS!

[fatboyjim]

Thanks, but sorry mate... CLI?

Oh and btw this is my FIRST BOOT after installing it

[fatboyjim]

OK, so it's command line interface

But run level 3? Like I said mate, NEWBIE ALERT

Oh, and how can I actually get INTO this CLI?

[OOPS!]

Sorry about that, should of been clearer. Anyway, what videocard are you using? You are most likely having a problem with a miss-detected driver. nVidas' come to mind.

To get to the cli, when you boot, there should be a screen that allows you to choose Linux, floppy, safemode, or other OS. use the arrow keys to select the safemode ( or what ever RH calls it). this will get you the cli. You will need to log in as root. Then you can run XFree86.

First before you do I recommend reading this http://www.xfree86.org/3.3.6/QuickStart.html It is a good tutorial, and covers things cookbook style (good for us newbies ).

Hope this helps,

OOPS!

[fatboyjim]

TNTII based on the... wait for it... nVidia chipset

[fatboyjim]

OK, got it sorted. Finally ran xf86config and my video card was in the list

Then I just had to press CTRL-ALT-+ a few times to get it to 1024x768

It took me a while to get the hang of the desktop being able to move around by just moving the mouse to the edge of the screen


Anyway, I can't seem to get the internet to work properly. Does Netscape need configuring as well as the internet connection? (I got it to connect I think - It dials and seems to be connected however Netscape cannot find any websites)


Thanks,

[OOPS!]

Glad to hear you got it working!! If you have anymore trouble with it, I recommend that you go to nVidas' site and use their linux drivers. They write their own and they generally work better than the stock ones supplied with RH. But if it is working fine, then you are lucky.

Netscape shouldn't need any configuring to work, outside of setting up your preferences. I would check your logs to see if it is really connected. Not exactly sure where RH puts them, but they should be somewhere under /var.

OOPS!

[fatboyjim]

Well, when I said working it was kinda working (When I dragged the mouse to make a box the background went slightly dodgy)

So I'll try to download those

OK then, I have 2 cd drives in this computer. As I can't get the internet to work at the moment could I download loads of Linux programs in Windows burn them to a CD and then run them from the CD in Linux?

I did put in a music CD the other day but nothing came out of the speakers (Don't know how to set sound up - but the cd was definitely being read as CD Player opened and the time went up)


Thanks,


Doesn't matter if I stuff it up btw, I'll keep on wiping it and starting again until it does

[OOPS!]

Yes you can definatly download to windows. If you have both OS's in the same box, you can access the windows drive directly (even if it is on another physical drive). You can access it thru your favorite filemanager in /mnt. Thus saving some hassel with burning.

If your soundcard was detected, try turning up the volume in your mixer settings. Believe it or not RH will often mute the sound until you un-mute it. If your soundcard wasn't detected properly, open a terminal and su to root. Then type sndconfig. That will run RH's soundcard configutor. When done, log out, restart X, and log back in. you should have sound then. If you only have sound when logged in as root, make sure that your users belong to the audio group.


OOPS!

[fatboyjim]

If I can download to windows that's superb, I might not even bother trying to get the net on Linux to work (Although it would be nice)

OK, I wiped it all off and started again with KDE. I'm getting used to it - it seems a little more friendly not sure though

I'll try the sndconfig thanks a lot


Should be back in about 20 mins to let you know how I got on


I wonder if the /mnt thing works for Windoze drives FAT32 AND NTFS?

[fatboyjim]

OK, more problems it is then

the /mnt thing leads me to three things : cdrom, cdrom1 and floppy

NOT MY HARD DRIVE ANYWHERE

Not sure what's going on there then



As for the sound, I'll have to give up (I ran sndconfig, it found my SBLive Player 5.1 then told me it wasn't supported) There are also no drivers for it on the creative website I think


Oh, and I can't get into the Mixer anyway, it won't let me. Says I may have to CHMOD some file, I did so but it still won't let me in. Maybe it's not installed properly? (For installation of Linux I just did a simple KDE-Install and let it Partition itself)


HTH, Thanks,

[Computer Hobbyist]

Originally posted by fatboyjim OK, more problems it is then the /mnt thing leads me to three things : cdrom, cdrom1 and floppy NOT MY HARD DRIVE ANYWHERE Not sure what's going on there then

Nothing unusual there, that's what you are supposed to see in the /mnt directory.

You probably set your system to mount your harddrive partitions on boot. you just need to play with the system a little

As to connecting to the internet, what kind of modem do you have? If it's a Winmodem you will not, without a lot of struggle, be able to connect to the internet. Winmodems are not really modems. You will probably need to install a real modem. Your system will thank you for it anyway.

As to your soundblaster card, what version of RedHat are you using?

CH

[fatboyjim]

Redhat 6.1

Not sure what you mean exactly when you say mounted the HDDs on boot. Could you please explain? NEWBIE ALERT


Erm, that's it I think. Creative don't seem to have ANY Linux drivers

[Computer Hobbyist]

Originally posted by fatboyjim Redhat 6.1 Not sure what you mean exactly when you say mounted the HDDs on boot. Could you please explain? NEWBIE ALERT Erm, that's it I think. Creative don't seem to have ANY Linux drivers

You cannot access a hard drive partition, a floppy disk or a CD-Rom until the device or partition is mounted. Kind of like getting on a horse. Mounting a device checks the status of the device and readies it for access. Linux can be(and in your case probably was) configured to automatically mount devices and partitions at boot. Devices or partitions not mounted at boot have to be manually mounted. Can you run a floppy or CD-Rom from KDE? If not you have to manually mount the floppy or CD-Rom drive. If you haven't mounted your CD-Rom it probably explains your soundblaster problem.

The /mnt directory provides a mount points for the floppy and CD-Roms. The mount command follows a pattern of "mount options device directory" so that mounting a floppy might look like this "mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy."

In your case I don't know what options you selected at install so can't tell you if you have to manually mount any device.

As to the soundblaster card problem, you might want to look at the datapower site for drivers, and the Red Hat site for help. Seems to me that nearly all soundblaster cards are supported.

CH

[fatboyjim]

Well, thanks for your help

I'm not sure if I saw an option as to which drives to mount at startup. My 2 CD ROMs are working (Well, I've only tried the first, I assume the second works too)

The floppy however I don't think is working... can it accept Windows formatted discs?


Thanks,

[fatboyjim]

Ok, got the internet to work after a while

Working perfectly now with Netscape etc etc.

HOWEVER, there is only one problem now then that remains. I cannot seem to mount my first HDD

Are there step-by-step instructions anywhere of how to find out what the drive is called and how to mount it?


Thanks again,

[Computer Hobbyist]

Originally posted by fatboyjim The floppy however I don't think is working... can it accept Windows formatted discs?

No. The floppy needs to be formated for Linux. The Linux command for format a floppy is fdformat /dev/fd0h1440 (for a 1.4 MB floppy). You have to be in root to format a floppy. Be careful.

CH

[Computer Hobbyist]

Originally posted by fatboyjim HOWEVER, there is only one problem now then that remains. I cannot seem to mount my first HDD

I forgot to ask, are you dual booting -- one hd for Windows and one for Linux? I typed the word "duel" initially. Freudian slip.

CH

[Computer Hobbyist]

I misspoke a couple of posts ago. I have just never had occasion to read a windows floppy. There are ways to mount Windows partitions. You might want to read this from the Linux Newbie site. The normal mount for a floppy is to a Linux formatted floppy.

As to not being able to see your first hard drive, you need to review how hard drives are organized in Linux.

CH

[fatboyjim]

OK, should all be working now I have the mount point setup. So that's all fine



Just to get the sound working now. I downloaded the emu10k1 drivers but I'm having a few teething problems. It would appear I don't have the "RPM of my Kernel" installed properly so the driver cannot be installed properly?



How would I go about finding and doing this?


I'm not entirely sure but anyway.








Thanks again,

[Computer Hobbyist]

RPM means RedHat Package Manager. RedHat, Mandrake and some other Linux Distributions use it as the standard way to deliver and install applications or software units. If you installed RedHat you can use RPM's. The basic convention for an RPM is "package name-version number (1.0)-release.architecture(i686).rpm" For example the name of a package I have on my machine right now is "NVIDIA_GIX-1.0-2313.i386.rpm". To install a package you must be in root and issue the following commands "rpm -ivh (name of package file)". The -i is the switch that tells the RPM to install. The -v is the switch is a verbose switch that tells the computer to print messages concerning progress of the install to the screen. The -h switch tells the computer to print # marks as a visible indication of the progress it is making as it prints. I believe that if you have one of the newer versions of RedHat you should be able to install a RPM from Xwindows, but I don't use that feature. It will ask you to log on as root by inserting the root password at a prompt. You can find out more about rpms by reading the newbie help files found at www.linuxnewbie.org . I'd look closely at the NHF on RPM dependencies. Another source of information about RedHat in general is found at the RedHat users FAQ site

CH

[OOPS!]

Getting closer to having it run!!! Great!

I think what the rpm is asking for is either the kernel sources rpm or more likly the kernel header rpm. If you look on your first install CD you should see them there somewhere. Install them both to be sure. this might require a recompile of the kernel. I've never added them by themselves. This will add them to the rpm database. Then try to install the emu10k1.rpm. Welcome to the wonderful world of dependencies!

PS- Might I suggest Mozilla 0.9.8 for your browser? It's much faster and more stable than Netscape of any flavor in Linux.

OOPS!

[fatboyjim]

Thanks for the help again, I still can't get it installed because I don't know exactly WHAT file it is on the CD (There are loads of them with the word Kernel there somewhere )

I already installed Opera (Smaller download than Mozilla ) is this OK? I like it a lot

That's all I think...

[fatboyjim]

OK, found out the problem after all of that

The RPMs I downloaded need a certain version of RPM. However, when I try to install the RPM upgrade it turns out that the upgrade itself needs various other upgrades to work.

So not very good after all, I think I'll probably just download the newest version of RH soon


Thanks again,

[OOPS!]

Opera is a fine browser, I have it also. The only complaint I have about it \, is that it still won't render some pages quite right for me. But then it is still a beta for Linux.

Switching to a newer version is definatly recommended. You will surprised at how much more mature 7.2 is compared to 6.1. You still might want to use the "real" nVida drivers over the stock one though.


OOPS!

[fatboyjim]

Yeah, so the whole thing's on hold until I find the time to download it (56k Dialup - Shouldn't take too long )

So then, now that I know the basics am I better to download Red Hat or Mandrake?

[OOPS!]

Oh my word!!! a dial-up! Man you ain't any better off then me. I guess I just buy the distros' over the counter myself. I just don't have the paitence to Dl' all that stuff at dial-up speeds.

As far as RH vs Mandy, well, RH is aimed more at the serverside than desktop. But it will also function just fine in that role. Mandy seems to be more of a desktop oriented distro than server, (although it will do just fine in that role also). It is more cutting edge as far as programs go. So sometimes it can be a bit dodgey because of that bleeding edge. I think the install and hardware support is equally good for both. So, take your pick. Heck, try them both!


OOPS!