When you say "I could not load it with the GUI so I had to load it with the text mode." you're referring to the install again right?
It sounds like that Linux could not detect/setup your graphics card/monitor.
First thing I would recommend is to use a more recent linux distro if possible (you may get lucky and have the newer distro detect everything). I would also make sure to select the non-graphical login setup option during the install. That will bring up the machine to console login and you will have to do a 'startx' to load X11 each time (you can always change to graphical login by CAREFULLY modifying the /etc/inittab file and changing the default runlevel from '3' to '5').
Once you have access on the console, issue the 'startx' command, expect X11 to fail and check the /var/log/Xorg.xxxxx logs to see what the problem is. Your worst case would be to get some system documentation for your graphics card and monitor (horizontal and vertical refresh rates) and modify the X11 config. file ( find /etc/X11/ | grep '.conf$' )
Try installing a newer driver for your graphics card - though you should be able to play w/ the above X11 config file and get it working on a low default resolution - e.g. 800x600.
Also, instead of attempting to reinstall first I would try to gain access to the console by doing an alt-ctrl-f2 when X11 fails on :0 (the root window). If you are able to get a console window, login as root or sudo over and kill the graphical login process (could be kdm or gdm depending on what you have set up the system for) - kill any X processes as well. Then do a alt-ctrl-f1 to go back to :0 and make sure that X was killed. Then try playing w/ the X11 config file as described above and issuing startx commands to see if you can bring X back up.
jz35
9 Posts
0
February 16th, 2007 03:00
It sounds like that Linux could not detect/setup your graphics card/monitor.
First thing I would recommend is to use a more recent linux distro if possible (you may get lucky and have the newer distro detect everything). I would also make sure to select the non-graphical login setup option during the install. That will bring up the machine to console login and you will have to do a 'startx' to load X11 each time (you can always change to graphical login by CAREFULLY modifying the /etc/inittab file and changing the default runlevel from '3' to '5').
Once you have access on the console, issue the 'startx' command, expect X11 to fail and check the /var/log/Xorg.xxxxx logs to see what the problem is. Your worst case would be to get some system documentation for your graphics card and monitor (horizontal and vertical refresh rates) and modify the X11 config. file ( find /etc/X11/ | grep '.conf$' )
Try installing a newer driver for your graphics card - though you should be able to play w/ the above X11 config file and get it working on a low default resolution - e.g. 800x600.
Also, instead of attempting to reinstall first I would try to gain access to the console by doing an alt-ctrl-f2 when X11 fails on :0 (the root window). If you are able to get a console window, login as root or sudo over and kill the graphical login process (could be kdm or gdm depending on what you have set up the system for) - kill any X processes as well. Then do a alt-ctrl-f1 to go back to :0 and make sure that X was killed. Then try playing w/ the X11 config file as described above and issuing startx commands to see if you can bring X back up.
sorry if the post is confusing but it's bedtime.