Help-Installed system does not start

[Stephen Walton]

Delbaere, Tim wrote:

>I am new to this Linux stuff
>
Welcome!

>I have to reboot, and do not know how to force it to start in a text login?
>
When the Grub screen comes up, highlight the line to boot Linux and hit 
e (that is, the 'e' key, no Enter).  In stock Fedora, you'll get a new 
screen with three lines, the second one of which begins with 'kernel=' 
.  Hit e again.  You'll now be able to edit this line.  Add the word 
'single' to the end, offset from a space, hit Enter to finish the 
editing and return to the three-line screen, then hit b for boot.  
Fedora will now boot into single-user, non-graphical mode leaving you at 
a shell prompt.

Now use vi to edit /etc/inittab.  Find the line reading

id:5:initdefault

and change the 5 to 3.  This will bring the system up in text mode.  Log 
in via text mode, type the command 'startx' and see what error messages 
you get.

>My system is a new Time AMD 2.7GHz, 1024Ram, 120GB HD, DVD RW, DVD Rom
>Readon 9200, gnr 977-pro monitor.
>
There's been a lot of discussion on this list about the Radeon 9200.  
Probably some of the messages in the archive could help you out.  But 
it's still useful to know the above stuff too.  It is a handy way of 
fixing things, like bad firewall settings, without dropping all the way 
to booting in rescue mode from the CD.

Stephen Walton
stephen.walton located at csun.edu