[porfiry]

i'm trying to install red hat 7.3 and could use some help.

i have an 80gig hard drive which already has win xp pro installed on a 30 gig ntfs partition.

i run the redhat installer and use disk druid to partition the drive into /, /boot (both ext3) and swap partitions. i am not installing GRUB on the MBR. at the moment, i have selected winxp to be the default boot loader so i have created a boot floppy for booting into redhat.
it seems to boot up fine with the floppy, but i always get a text login screen (i.e. Gnome does not load). and its pretty annoying!! help!!
gnome definitely seems to have been installed and i have it selected to be the default window manager.

i'd like to install redhat without worrying about not being able to boot into winxp and/or losing all data on my winxp partition (i.e. install it without having to boot with a floppy and have both redhat and winxp as boot options). i'd sincerely appreciate any tips or suggestions in this regard.

i've probably not been totally clear about certain things in this thread. please pardon the ignorance of a linux newbie.

[lynch]

The latest versions of Grub and Lilo take care of setting up XP and W2K pretty well.I did a test install of Mandrake 8.2 on an existing W2K system that was formatted as NTFS on 3 partitions totalling about 1/3 of the drive.I chose to leave windows intact and install Linux on the available free space.On restart I had a boot menu listing choices of Linux(default) NT and floppy among others(a couple repair options.)Check out this thread and follow the link to install Grub on the MBR,if you decide you want to.You can select the default OS by editing the /boot/grub.menu.lst.
To get to the GUI, type:
startx
That should do it.If not,and you get a bunch of scrolling messages and one that says "no screens found" you might have to configure X by hand.If you know your video hardware(vid card and chipset,monitor refresh rates,resolutions) you probably can get the GUI working.
If startx works you need to change your run-level.That is is done by editing /etc/inittab. The line that reads:
id:3:initdefault:
needs to be changed to read:
id:5:initdefault:
HTH
lynch

[porfiry]

thanks lynch

startx works and gets me into gnome. but i checked /etc/inittab and its already set to read id:5:initdefault:
what'm i doing wrong??

[lynch]

Sorry for the late reply.If you've fixed this,I'm glad(and tell me how you did it ) When you do the startx does it take you straight to the Gnome desktop?Also,try looking for gdm or xdm with the locate or the which command.I'll still look around for a solution.
lynch

[porfiry]

hey lynch

haven't found a solution yet.
when i do startx, it takes me straight to gnome and everything seems to be running fine. all devices are installed.

another question: how do i set my default window manager to be kde instead of gnome? kde is already installed.

thanks

[lynch]

Until your GUI login manager thing is figured out(I'm still looking, when I can and when I think of it ) try this:
startx kde
That should work.In order to select KDE or Gnome graphically or by default its easiest when the GUI starts automatically,which is why I suggested looking for GDM or XDM with the locate or which command.
For some odd reason,your /etc/inittab is set to start Xwindows on bootup and take you to the GUI login.Thats what the id:5:initdefault is supposed to do.But its not,so I'm thinking it's the login manager isnt loading or not installed(not very likely).You may want to check /var/log/messages to see if any related errors were logged in there.
So try the startx kde command for now until one of us (or someone else that reads this thread comes along that smarter than either of us ) get's this thing going.
HTH
lynch