Problems After Installation

Trouble With the Graphical GRUB Screen?

If, for some reason, you need to disable the graphical boot screen, you can do so, as root, by editing the /boot/grub/grub.conf file and then rebooting your system.

To do this, comment out the line which begins with splashimage in the grub.conf file. To comment out a line, insert the ; character at the beginning of the line.

Once you reboot, the grub.conf file will be reread and your changes will take place.

You may re-enable the graphical boot screen by uncommenting (or adding) the above line back into the grub.conf file and rebooting.

Trouble With the Graphical LILO Screen?

If, for some reason, you need to disable the graphical boot screen, you can do so, as root, by editing the /etc/lilo.conf file and then rerunning LILO.

First, as root, comment out (or delete) the line which reads message=/boot/message in the /etc/lilo.conf file. To comment out a line, insert the ; character at the beginning of the line. Next, rerun LILO by typing /sbin/lilo -v. The next time you boot, you will see the text LILO: prompt, as used in previous Red Hat Linux releases.

You may re-enable the graphical boot screen by adding (or uncommenting) the above line back into the lilo.conf file and rerunning LILO.

Booting into a Graphical Environment

If you have installed the X Window System, but are not seeing a graphical desktop environment once you log into your Red Hat Linux system, you can easily start the X Window System graphical interface using the command startx.

Once you enter this command and press [Enter], you will be able to log into the graphical desktop of your choice (such as GNOME or KDE).

Problems with Server Installations and X

If you performed a server installation and you are having trouble getting X to start, you may not have installed the X Window System during your installation.

If you want the X Window System, you can perform an upgrade to install X. During the upgrade, select the X Window System packages, and choose GNOME, KDE, or both.

Problems When You Try to Log In

If you did not create a user account during the installation you will need to log in as root and use the password you assigned to root.

If you cannot remember your root password, you will need to boot your system as linux single.

If you are using GRUB, once you have loaded the GRUB boot screen, type e for edit. You will be presented with a list of items in the configuration file for the boot label you have selected.

Choose the line that starts with kernel and type e to edit this boot entry.

At the end of the kernel line, add:

linux single

Press [Enter] to exit edit mode.

Once the GRUB screen has returned, type b to boot into single user mode.

If you are using LILO, press [Ctrl]-[x] to exit the graphical LILO screen and gain access to the LILO boot: prompt.

Next, enter linux single at the LILO boot: prompt.

Once you have booted into single user mode using either GRUB or LILO and have access to the # prompt, you will need to type passwd root, which will allow you to enter a new password for root. At this point you can type shutdown -r now and the system will reboot with your new password.

If you cannot remember your user account password, you must become root. To become root, type su - and enter your root password when prompted. Then, type passwd <username>. This allows you to enter a new password for the specified user account.

If you selected either the custom or workstation installation and do not see the graphical login screen, check your hardware for compatibility issues. The Hardware Compatibility List can be found at:

http://hardware.redhat.com/hcl/

Is Your RAM Not Being Recognized?

Sometimes, the kernel does not recognize all of your memory (RAM). You can check this with the following command:

cat /proc/meminfo

Find out if the displayed quantity is the same as the known amount of RAM in your system. If they are not equal, add the following line to the /boot/grub/grub.conf:

mem=xxM

Or, if you used LILO, add the following line to the /etc/lilo.conf file:

append="mem=xxM"

Replace xx with the amount of RAM you have in megabytes. Remember that per-image append lines completely overwrite the global append line. It might be worth adding this to the per-image descriptions, as shown in this example:

mem=128M

append="mem=128M"

In /boot/grub/grub.conf, the above example would look similar to the following:

#NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
#        all kernel paths are relative to /boot/
default=0
timeout=30
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.6-2)
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.2.6-2 ro root=/dev/hda3 mem=128M

Once you reboot, the changes made to grub.conf will be reflected on your system.

In /etc/lilo.conf, the above example would look similar to the following:

boot=/dev/sda
      map=/boot/map
      install=/boot/boot.b
      prompt
      timeout=50

      image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.12-20
              label=linux
              root=/dev/sda1
              initrd=/boot/initrd-2.2.12-20.img
              read-only
              append="mem=128M"

Remember to run /sbin/lilo -v after changing /etc/lilo.conf.

Note that you can also produce the same effect by actually passing this option when you are specifying the label/image to use in GRUB or LILO.

Once you have loaded the GRUB boot screen, type e for edit. You will be presented with a list of items in the configuration file for the boot label you have selected.

Choose the line that starts with kernel and type e to edit this boot entry.

At the end of the kernel line, add

mem=xxM

where xx equals the amount of RAM in your system.

Press [Enter] to exit edit mode.

Once the GRUB screen has returned, type b to boot with your new RAM specifications.

At the graphical LILO screen, press [Ctrl]-[x] to exit to the boot: prompt. Next, enter the following at the boot: prompt:

linux mem=xxM

Remember to replace xx with the amount of RAM in your system. Press [Enter] to boot.

Your Printer Will Not Work

If you are not sure how to set up your printer or are having trouble getting it to work properly, try using the Printer Configuration Tool.

Type the redhat-config-printer command in a shell prompt to launch the Printer Configuration Tool. If you are not root, it will prompt you for the root password to continue.

Problems with Sound Configuration

If you do not have sound after your installation, you may need to run one of the sound configuration utilities.

To run the graphical sound configuration tool (Red Hat Sound Card Configuration Tool — redhat-config-soundcard), from the Main Menu click on System Tools=>Sound Card Configuration.

To run the text-based configuration tool, as root, type sndconfig in a terminal window.

	Note
	sndconfig must be run in runlevel 3. More information about runlevels can be found in the Official Red Hat Linux Reference Guide, in chapter Boot Process, Init, and Shutdown.

If the sound card configuration tools do not help, you may need to select the Enable sound server startup option under Multimedia=>Sound in the GNOME Control Center.

To do this, click on Panel=>Programs=>Settings=>GNOME Control Center to launch the GNOME Control Center. In the GNOME Control Center, select the Sound submenu of the Multimedia menu. On the right, a General sound menu will appear. Select Enable sound server startup and then click OK.

Apache-based httpd service/Sendmail Hangs During Startup

If you are having trouble with the Apache-based httpd service or Sendmail hanging at startup, make sure the following line is in the /etc/hosts file:

      127.0.0.1  localhost.localdomain  localhost