[bollejo]

I bought a Red Hat 7 for dummies book. It came with Red Hat. I started the install like the book said, but about two or three steps into the install it looked nothing like the book. After installing, when I boot up it takes me to the command prompt, no GUI.
The machine I am putting this on is an older 133MHz machine. If there is incompatable parts would this not let you see the GUI, or did I mess up the install, since I had to wing it after the steps that were not in the book. It seemed fairly simple.
I really want to use Linux, so if some one can help I would be grateful. Thanks

[Compunuts]

Originally posted by bollejo
I started the install like the book said, but about two or three steps into the install it looked nothing like the book. After installing, when I boot up it takes me to the command prompt, no GUI.

I'm guessing that the book was talking about installing on GUI based installer and since your machine wasn't capable of doing it, it could have chosen to install in TEXT based mode to install. In the setup as well, you need to explicitly instruct Linux install to start GUI automatically when you start up Linux. YOU need to do it. Read to to find out how.

The machine I am putting this on is an older 133MHz machine. If there is incompatable parts would this not let you see the GUI

Yes I guess there is. Your system is too low for the GUI to display for the full blown distribution like Red Hat 7.0. Even though Linux wil run on minimal hardware, the GUI installers are very choosy about this. After you have done the set up, Linux should run fine on your machine though.

or did I mess up the install, since I had to wing it after the steps that were not in the book. It seemed fairly simple.

It's fairly simple if you follow the steps carefully and you've read the options at the setup carefully. It's not a wise idea just to wip thought the install and clicking next before you completely understand what you are getting into... Aside from that, I guess you did fine.

I really want to use Linux, so if some one can help

You need to tell us exactly what you see on your screen than let us shoot into the dark here. What the Command Prompt say? (It's NOT command prompt BTW). Did you ask you to log on? If you have used Windows NT or Win2K in business enviroment, you may already be familiar with logging on. But if your background is mostly in consumer OS (Win9x), the idea of logging onto system may seems strange. But that's what the beauty of Linux is. It comes secure right out of the box. If you don't have access to the OS, you an't getting in. In Win9x, I can hit cancel and snoop on files that are on HDD. Anyway, what you usually do is this.

1. Log on to Linux system with ROOT that you created. (Remember you typed in Password when set up? The user name is root and the password is that you typed in.)

2. Type StartX to get into GUI.

3. Create regular user account to log on. Using Root all the time is a huge security risk since root is the superuser account and can do any changes to the system. One bad command can cause your system to render useless.

4. You get into "/etc/inittab" file in Terminal window and change. Find the line that says id:3:initdefault which resembled id: runlevels : action : process format. change the number to 5 from 3 and you should be okay when you reboot next time. Refer to runlevels and inittab file help in your book.

I hope this helps..... a little.

[edited] Darn UBB code converts my post to some smily ones.... so add in code tags... [/edited]

[Edited by Compunuts on 05-25-2001 at 06:57 PM]

[bollejo]

thanks -- startx worked