Won't boot to X after install

[neidorff]

Hi folks,

This is about a fresh install of FC3 that won't boot into X to
complete the install (post install steps).

The system:
 1.8 GHz Athlon XP
ASUS A7V333 mb
1 Gig ram
Buslogic 958 SCSI controller
18 Gig SCSI drive (seagate)
NVIDIA graphics  64Mb (I forgot which chip it is, but it is AGP 4X)

Downloaded & verified the FC3 CDs.  Booted CD 1 and tested all media. 
All passed.  Then, installed onto a clean HDD.  I selected my packages
(custom install) and install proceeded without problem.  At the end of
the install, it asked me to reboot.  I did.  The system came up to the
point of a grey screen with a large mouse pointer.  No desktop loaded.
 I checked the consoles and they showed no errors.  I created 3
partitions:  1--boot (500Mb) 2--home (10Gig) 3--/ (7.5Gig or so).  I
can mount these partitions from my RH 7.3 installation, and it shows
that none of them filled up.

Will someone please help me fix this system so that it can boot and I
can configure it?

Many thanks,

Mark

[Thufir]

On 4/30/05, neidorff  wrote:
> Hi folks,

[..]
> Will someone please help me fix this system so that it can boot 
> and I
> can configure it?

to start with, have you tried to do anything with the rescue cd? 
also, does a live cd, such as knoppix, work?  I offer only questions,
not actual help ;)

Thufir

[Alexander Dalloz]

Am Sa, den 30.04.2005 schrieb neidorff um 19:27:
> This is about a fresh install of FC3 that won't boot into X to
> complete the install (post install steps).
> Downloaded & verified the FC3 CDs.  Booted CD 1 and tested all media. 
> All passed.  Then, installed onto a clean HDD.  I selected my packages
> (custom install) and install proceeded without problem.  At the end of
> the install, it asked me to reboot.  I did.  The system came up to the
> point of a grey screen with a large mouse pointer.  No desktop loaded.
>  I checked the consoles and they showed no errors.  I created 3
> partitions:  1--boot (500Mb) 2--home (10Gig) 3--/ (7.5Gig or so).  I
> can mount these partitions from my RH 7.3 installation, and it shows
> that none of them filled up.
> Mark

At grub boot screen press "a" and remove "rhgb quiet" from kernel line
and then boot.

Alexander

[neidorff]

On 4/30/05, Alexander Dalloz  wrote:
> Am Sa, den 30.04.2005 schrieb neidorff um 19:27:
> > This is about a fresh install of FC3 that won't boot into X to
> > complete the install (post install steps).
> > Downloaded & verified the FC3 CDs.  Booted CD 1 and tested all media.
> > All passed.  Then, installed onto a clean HDD.  I selected my packages
> > (custom install) and install proceeded without problem.  At the end of
> > the install, it asked me to reboot.  I did.  The system came up to the
> > point of a grey screen with a large mouse pointer.  No desktop loaded.
> >  I checked the consoles and they showed no errors.  I created 3
> > partitions:  1--boot (500Mb) 2--home (10Gig) 3--/ (7.5Gig or so).  I
> > can mount these partitions from my RH 7.3 installation, and it shows
> > that none of them filled up.
> > Mark
>
> At grub boot screen press "a" and remove "rhgb quiet" from kernel line
> and then boot.

Yes, I tried that.  Same situation.

Thanks,
Mark

[neidorff]

On 4/30/05, THUFIR HAWAT  wrote:
> On 4/30/05, neidorff  wrote:
> > Hi folks,
>
> [..]
> > Will someone please help me fix this system so that it can boot
> > and I
> > can configure it?
>
> to start with, have you tried to do anything with the rescue cd?
> also, does a live cd, such as knoppix, work?  I offer only questions,
> not actual help ;)
>
> Thufir

Yes, I booted with the rescue CD.  It didn't make any changes to the
disk.  On a separate HD, in the same computer, I have RH 7.3
installed.  I am using that just fine now.
(I also have a knoppix CD here that I have booted with.  It also works.)

Thanks,

Mark

On Sat, Apr 30, 2005 at 06:01:45PM +0000, neidorff wrote:
> On 4/30/05, THUFIR HAWAT  wrote:
> > On 4/30/05, neidorff  wrote:
> > > Hi folks,
> >
> > [..]
> > > Will someone please help me fix this system so that it can boot
> > > and I
> > > can configure it?
> >
> > to start with, have you tried to do anything with the rescue cd?
> > also, does a live cd, such as knoppix, work?  I offer only questions,
> > not actual help ;)
> >
> > Thufir
>
> Yes, I booted with the rescue CD.  It didn't make any changes to the
> disk.  On a separate HD, in the same computer, I have RH 7.3
> installed.  I am using that just fine now.
> (I also have a knoppix CD here that I have booted with.  It also works.)
>
> Thanks,
>
> Mark

Various thoughts:
1. Can you not boot at all, or you can't boot into init 5. If you can
boor to int 3 do that and run system-config-display to configure the
xorg.conf file for X.

2, Do have a proper grub.conf and has grub been installed. If that is a
problem it can be fixed buy booting into rescue mode and them do a
chroot /mnt/sysimage (or make your FC3 root partition root) to fix
grub.

[Jim Cornette]

neidorff wrote:
> The system came up to the point of a grey screen with a large mouse
> pointer. No desktop loaded.

This sounds suspiciously like you did not install a desktop (KDE, GNOME 
or another desktop.

Which desktop did you install?

Jim

[Jim Cornette]

neidorff wrote:
> The system came up to the point of a grey screen with a large mouse
> pointer. No desktop loaded.

This sounds suspiciously like you did not install a desktop (KDE, GNOME
or another desktop.

Which desktop did you install?

Jim

One added thought. This failure to load the dsktop also happened to me 
on a development system. I logged into a terminal as root and ran 
setenforce 0

After running this command, switch back to the GUI and ctl-alt-backspace 
to restart the login manager and X.

This puts SELinux in permissive mode, like someone posted the correct 
function of this command. It will still log avc errors in your 
/var/log/messages file. These can be used to find out why your desktop 
is failing to start and you only get the grey screen and pointer.

Jim

[neidorff]

On 4/30/05, Jim Cornette  wrote:
> neidorff wrote:
> > The system came up to the point of a grey screen with a large mouse
> > pointer. No desktop loaded.
>
> This sounds suspiciously like you did not install a desktop (KDE, GNOME
> or another desktop.
>
> Which desktop did you install?
>
> Jim

Problem solved.  Booted into runlevel 3. Ran startx (gnome desktop
came up).  Ran switchdesk kde logged out of X and back in.  kde came
up.  Changed runlevel to 5, booted and came up into graphics mode just
fine.  Strange, but true.