Tricky post-install graphics problem

[James Wilkinson]

T. Seth Georgion wrote:
> I'm having a really bizarre problem with my install.

Sorry to hear that.

> The install goes fine, complete install with Intel extreme graphics card in 
> a Gateway M275xl laptop, completely boots up into Fedora Core 2 and 
> everything is wonderful, I can change the display settings to just about 
> anything and my monitor is set up as a generic LCD.
> 
> Things get strange on subsequent reboots. On reboot there are two main 
> screens one with a picture of a computer and a loading status bar, the 
> other a text like interface listing manual startup issues with a green 
> passed or red failed.

We're going to need to know which startup scripts have the FAILED. They
might be causing this problem, and should be investigated in any case.

> Basically the computer randomly picks which of those 
> two it's going to show on any particular boot and then also tries to decide 
> how long (sometimes it randomly skips back and forth between the two on the 
> same boot) Then when it does boot up and tries to start x (right after 
> showing the logon prompt) 9 out of ten times I go to a straight blank 
> screen that is unescapable via ctrl-alt-bkspace. The other time it boots to 
> a screen that's half solid yellow and half solid black.
> 
> When that happens about half of the time I can hit ctrl-alt-bkspace and it 
> will exit to a logon prompt where it will automatically start x and all is 
> perfect. The other half of the time, every time I hit ctrl-alt-backspace it 
> seems to wait two minutes, clear the screen and go back to the yellow and 
> black again 30 seconds later.
> 
> What's up with this? And does anyone know how to keep X from starting 
> automatically without using the GUI?

Yes. There are a number of ways to do what you want: the easiest is to
edit /boot/grub/grub.conf. There will be a stanza looking like this:

title Fedora Core (2.6.5-1.358)
        root (hd0,5)
        kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.5-1.358 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
        initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.5-1.358.img

Change the kernel line to

        kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.5-1.358 ro root=LABEL=/ 3

(If you've installed updates, which is a good idea, then the 2.6.5-1.358
might be a different number. Leave that alone: don't try changing that
number).

The change does three things: it turns off quiet mode, showing a lot
more diagnostic text on boot-up; it turns off the Red Hat Graphical
Boot: you'll get the text interface you described every time, and it
turns off the automatic loading of X (runlevel 3 is just like runlevel
5, but it doesn't start X). To get into X, log in using text mode and
type startx. This command line

startx > startx.log 2>&1

should keep X diagnostic output in a log file named startx.log.

Hope this helps,

James.

-- 
E-mail address: james | "Does exactly what it says on the tin." ...
@westexe.demon.co.uk  | I've got a tin at home: it says "Open other end".
                      | It never is.
                      | -- Humphrey Lyttelton, "I'm Sorry, I Haven't A Clue"