Trying to Boot Directly into the GUI and other Display Problems

[7mgte]

During the clean install of FC6 there was a message saying there was not
enough memory to do use the GUI installer and that the text installer would
be used instead.  Fair enough since the machine has 192MB of memory.  (The
machine is a Compaq EN and is going to be used mainly as a firewall.)  Later
in the install, in prompted to allow the early use of the hard drive for a
swap file due to the small physical memory.

Now, in past installs (I am still a relative novice) the machine would boot
into the GUI (runlevel 5) after the installation.  However, this machine
keeps coming up in text mode.  During boot, I see a INIT runlevel 3 go by,
but can't figure out what is causing it to go into text mode.

In text mode, logging in as root, I can do a gdm and the GUI comes up.  So
it would seem that all the bits and pieces are there for the GUI.  There is
one odd thing though.  When I try to change the display resolution it limits
me to 800x600 apparently because it thinks it is hooked to a generic CRT
display with limited capability.  The truly bizarre thing is that it will
not let me change the display type to anything else (OK is greyed out)!
(The monitor is a ViewSonic VA912b LCD that handily does 1280 x 1024!

I have tried to use all the classic Xconfig type tools, but none of them
seem to be installed.  I've also done a variety of Google searches, but not
come up with anything that helps.  (Not to say it doesn't exist, but I have
not hit it with the keywords I used!).

Is the core of my problem the limited DRAM on my system?  Or is there
something I screwed up with the installation.  Any references or help will
be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Don

[Chris Mohler]

On 3/31/07, 7mgte  wrote:
[...]
> During boot, I see a INIT runlevel 3 go by,
> but can't figure out what is causing it to go into text mode.

Edit /etc/inittab and change the runlevel to 5 if you want it to
always come up in graphical mode.

I'm not sure about the problem with your monitor...

Chris

[7mgte]

Chris,

Thanks for making me look at inittab again!  When I went through it trying
to debug this problem, I saw the last two lines which have a reference to
runlevel 5.  Your prompt resulted in me studying it in detail and decoding
the default runlevel block at the top of the file.

As far as the monitor goes, I ended up picking a ViewSonic similar to the
one I have and the "OK" button became active.  Don't quite understand the
Generic CRT and Generic LCD options, but the machine is now running
1280x1024.

Oh happy day!

Thanks for the help!

Don

-----Original Message-----
From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]]
On Behalf Of Chris Mohler
Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2007 02:37 PM
To: [e-mail]; For users of Fedora
Subject: Re: Trying to Boot Directly into the GUI and other Display Problems

On 3/31/07, 7mgte  wrote:
[...]
> During boot, I see a INIT runlevel 3 go by, but can't figure out what 
> is causing it to go into text mode.

Edit /etc/inittab and change the runlevel to 5 if you want it to always come
up in graphical mode.

I'm not sure about the problem with your monitor...

Chris

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