FC4 installation doesn't work

[Scott Talbot]

Juan wrote:

> Hi.
> I bought the CDs from Linux central and they tested OK.
> I have FC3 installed in this box and its installation was a breeze.
> Now when trying to install/upgrade to FC4 I go through the Anaconda 
> process till the moment it should begin to ask for the language. At 
> this point the screen turns totally white so I can't keep installing.
> Is there a way to overcome this? Has someone had this kind of problem 
> and solved it?
> Thanks in advance
>  
> Juan

    Check this out, sounds like what you have:

On Wed, 2005-06-15 at 21:29 -0400, Jim Cornette wrote:

>> AdabalaP at schneider.com wrote:
>  
>
>>>> > > I tried to performed a graphical install but got a "white screen",
>>>> > > So switched to test based install, Installation went fine. Now i
>>>> > > get the same "white screen" when i rebooted. Has any one seen this
>>>> > > issue ?
>>>> > >
>>>> > > Details: Model - Compaq Presario, Video Card - Cyber Blade
>>>      
>>>
>>> >
>>    
>>
>> 
>> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=160580
>> 
>> This person has.
>> 
>> What might be helpful is to try to replace the file described in
>> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=157556
>> regarding replacing /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/libvgahw.a
>> with a version from extracting it from the latest FC3 version of xorg-x11.
>> 
>> Good luck!
>> What this will provide is confirmation that this file is wreaking havoc 
>> on a slew of different video cards. If it works, you will have more than 
>> a white screen for your GUI.
>> Including binary hacks with released binaries are not sent out with the 
>> binary rpms. sometimes the hack is desirable compared to the 
>> alternatives though.
>> Rename the FC4 version before you do this replacement. You might need to 
>> restart the computer, change runlevel or restart the x server in some 
>> other way for the change to take effect.
>> 
>> I like to use mc (midnight commander) to dive into rpms to extract files 
>> from it. There are probably other utilities to extract the file, but 
>> just a suggested program.
>> 
>> Jim
>  
>

The white screen seems to be a problem with Trident CyberBlade
video cards, which I have, so I couldn't get the GUI install to work at
all. I installed FC4 alongside FC3, on a separate partition, using the
text install. Then I could try the trick of substituting files, without
risking loss of a working FC3. 
The bugzilla report mentioned above suggests two changes:
	/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/libvgahw.a
and	/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/mga_drv.o
I did this by mounting the FC4 partition in FC3 so I could just copy the
files across from FC3 to FC4 directories. In short, it worked and FC4
looks very nice.

I'll put a report into bugzilla soon but I want to try just changing one
file at a time.
-- James Bridge <james at xmas.demon.co.uk> Assuming you still have the FC3 
installed, should be easy to cp them over to your new install! Good Luck 
Scott