Troubles with RedHat 8.0

[scott_d]

Hey,
I got an old hdd here from my friend, pretty small, but it will get the job done I think.
I went and installed RedHat 8 on it all willy nilly, had no idea what I was doing.
Well, I got to the part that it tested my cd media, and it failed. "oh well" i thought, no biggie, so I went ahead and installed It anyway.
It installed just fine, simple as can be, but now when I try the "startx" when logged in as root, it says
"Fatal server error:
No screens found

XIO :fatal IO error 104 on X Server
after 0 requests"

It said more, but I'm pretty sure it was useless.

Is this because of my "bad" cd's? Maybe i should go get some better quality ones, they are pretty cheap.
Or is there something I didnt do when I installed?
I am totally lost, I dont even know what to type when I want to shut the durn thing down, all this [- whatever] root blah @ local user stuff is confusing to me still.
Big thanks for your help

[kilgoretrout]

Get new CDs and if you want redhat get RH9, the latest version. If your going to buy CDs, you may want to also consider Mandrake 9.1.
There's really no easy way to tell whether your problem is due ot the corrupted CDs or not. You don't list your hardware so it's hard to give advice but RH9 and MDK9.1 have more recent graphics drivers in the new XFree86 that they use. If you have really old hardware, you may have to use an older version of XFree however.

To shut down from the command line do the following:

$ su
[root password]
# reboot (if you want to reboot)
# halt (if you want to shut down)

Personally, I wouldn't bother trying to troubleshoot an install from known bad CDs. It will be an exercise in frustration and you'll never be sure that your problems aren't due to some corrupted file on the CD.

[scott_d]

Alright, thanks
I have pretty new hard ware, and I downloaded RH 9 last night and am going to find some better quality cd's to make the disks from, hopefully I will have better luck. I'll keep you posted
Thanks again

[scott_d]

Hey,
I put RH 9 on some new cd's that passed the "test" and now I am typing this message from inside Red Hat 9.0!!!
Wow, I feel so special.
THanks for all the help guys

edit : Do I need to download any drivers? particularly for the video? I tryed the tux racer game just for fun and it seemed kinda choppy.
I found that nvida does have drivers for linux, but I dont know what one to get!

[LocoCoyote]

So, RH9 is a good thing? I am working on downloading the isos now. Going to upgrade from RH 7.2

[scott_d]

After 2 days of using RH 9, and never before using linux...I have to say it is pretty easy.
I havent gotten the file system figured out much yet...but I havent really tryed. Or installing things. Wish I had a bigger hdd, the one i'm using for 'nix is only 6.5 gigs....then I wouldnt be so afraid to run out of space....
Blue curve is really nice, alot like windows, but its like having 4 desktops that you can easily switch between.
Comes with a prog that is exactly like AIM, and interfaces with it too, and a nice cd player. Only drawback is it has NO mp3 support...kinda sucks...
oh yea, it has a TON of games....arcade style, but fun

[kilgoretrout]

The easiest way to install new programs on RH 9 is using apt-get. Here's a link that explains the whole thing:

http://apt-rpm.tuxfamily.org/

It really works great and there's a butload of programs there. For mp3 support in xmms, download the rpm here:

http://havardk.xmms.org/dist/xmms-1.2.7-rh8-rh9-rpm/

After downloading, click on it and enter your root password when prompted. The package will be installed and afterwards you'll be able to play mp3s with xmms.

Good luck and welcome to linux.