cant install linux

[ssahl]

I cant seem to get red hat linux to work on my system. It installs all the way through the same way I have done it before (on another motherboard) but when it goes to reboot for the first time it halts and all I see is a pixelated screen with 2 things to click, a yes or no I guess it's not readable. Is it because of my motherboard? which is an Epox 8RDA+ with the nvidia chipset. It doesnt matter which thing I click on after I click on it I get the command prompt, but as I dont know linux very well it doesnt do me any good.

[kilgoretrout]

It's probably your nvidia graphics controller. You need to install the nvidia driver. Here's a link that walks you through it:

http://www.linuxiso.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1959

[ssahl]

well my graphics card is a radeon 9100, the same one I used on the other motherboard and all worked fine.

[kilgoretrout]

Do you get to a text based login screen? If so, login and run:

$ startx

That should put you into a gui or give you an error message.

[ssahl]

I did that and this is what it said:

(==)log file: "/var/log/XFree86.0.log" time....

(==) Using config file: "/etc/X11XF86config"

(EE) no devices detected.

fatal server error:
no screens found

XIO: fatal IO error 104 (connection reset by peer) on X server ":0.0" after 0 requests (0 known processed) with 0 events remaining

[kilgoretrout]

That's definitely a graphics driver problem; support for the newer radeons is not that good with the open source linux drivers available but ati has made proprietary linux drivers for their newer radeons available on their website for free. I hear they can be a bear to install, however. It's been a while since I installed or run RH 9, but IIRC, during the install there is a graphics setup screen where you can choose your graphics card, set screen res and color depth and test the configuration. Did you do so and if you did, what card did you select and what was the result of the test? I doubt that there was a selection for the 9100 because it's too new and the open source voluteers that write the drivers have not gotten around to it yet. I've heard that the radeon 9200 will work OK if you select radeon 8500 for your graphics card so you might want to reinstall and try that with your 9100. However, you probaly won't get 3d accelaeration with that driver; for that you'll need the radeon proprietary driver.

[ssahl]

ok, yea thats what I was thinking, and yea your right, I did pick the 8500. I'll run through the install again and try the 9200, and I do my gaming on winXP so as long as it lets me do the gui thing I'll be happy. I thought for sure last time I picked the 8500 but maybe it was the 9200 or the generic one it wanted to do, at any rate I'll try the other two and reinstall and see if I cant get things going. Thanks, I'll let you know how it turns out.

[kilgoretrout]

Check your monitor selection too and test the configuration to make sure it works. I'd just keep trying till you get one that works if possible. The most rudimentary driver is the vesa driver. It works for all graphics cards but you'll be very limited re screen resolution and color depth.

[ssahl]

ok, I got it up and running, there was not a 9200, so I checked the 9000 and it's up and running, my only problem now is getting it so that I can access the internet, I have dsl and have been using the onboard ethernet, which is

NVIDIA nForce MCP networking adapter

when I try and add ethernet device there is nothing for nvidia at all, and I tried several but none would work. I get the feeling that it would almost be easier to dig up my dlink card that my dsl provider sent me and put that in there then to try and get the onboard one to work, but if there is a way you could help this linux noob to get it to work the way it's setup (with onboard ethernet) that would be great.