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Appendix D. Troubleshooting Your Installation of Red Hat Linux

D.4.4. 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.

D.4.5. 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/

D.4.6. 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"