Alright...here's where the story begins.

I'm ready to check out the penguin. After several mis-steps and many problems I was finally able to get FC1 to install on my system.

Currently, here's where I stand:

Dual Boot System
WinXP Pro
Fedora Core 1

After finding out that the Graphical Installation program wouldn't work, I did a text based install. All went smoothly...or so it seemed.

Upon completion of the FC1 Installation, I rebooted. Grub seems to work properly as I have three two of which are Fedora (one Graphic based/one Text based?) and DOS.

I didn't have any of the problems with my MBR and I can still boot into WinXP (I'm there now).

The problem is that FC1 locks up at the "Firstboot" section of the OS Loadup. I rebooted the box and tried the other choice but the system seemed to stall on the Firewire portion (though it said [OK]...the next line was where everything seemed to stop responding).

I've looked around and found a few threads relating to this but I'm still unsure what to try.

My computer is a Dell XPS Desktop, 3.0 gig P4 with 1 gig of Ram. I have an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro graphics card and a Creative Audigy Sound card. My Monitor is a Hitachi CM615 and I have a Logitech Cordless MX Duo Keyboard/Mouse connected via USB.

I've also seen information telling me to edit XFree86 but I'm unsure how to properly get there and from where.

If one of the learned on this board would be willing to guide me through these troubled waters...I would be eternally greatful and gladly pass any and all knowledge gleaned to those who follow.

I'm positive this is already written and answered somewhere on this site, but I'll be darned if I could find it.

At any rate, thanks in advance for the help!

Regards,
Paul

Not familiar with that. Can you be more specific? Maybe describe some of the other messages right before that?

What other choice?

Were you able to login to Fedora? If you can get into the system at all, you should definitely run "dmesg" and post the output here. These are the bootup messages that were written to a log file, and should tell us if you had any hardware problems during boot.

That's pretty vauge. XFree86 is the basic graphical environment for FC1.

paul,

have you tried to boot using disk 1 of your fedora installation cd's? if you do this there is an option for "rescue mode" or something similar, (sorry, at work on an xp machine) which will let you make an image of the drive to boot into, and will do it in all text mode, so if your problem is with X, you can work around it. it's worth a try, as it has helped me out several times.

hope this helps.

Thanks for the replies guys.

The problem is...this is the first time I've ever used Linux in any form and I'm not sure how to run any of those things.

I did try to do the XFree86 -config from the rescue cd but it kept telling me that I had an invalid command.

I was able to get as far as the loadup screen and the computer stopped responding at "firstboot" If you could/would give me a few tips on how to run "dmesg" or post the exact steps I take to get there, I'll give that a shot.

Like I said, I have been reading everything I could find to figure this out for a couple of days with no luck.

Regards,
Paul

Well, if you are able to boot all the way up, you should be given a login prompt where you can login as the root user for the first time, or login as the unprivliged account you created when you were installing the system. Either way, when you login to the system for the first time, you should simply type dmesg at the command prompt. It might work better typing in "dmesg | more" and you'll be giving a page-by-page display of the messages that were recorded when you booted up.

However, it sounds like you aren't even getting that far. I really don't know what "firstboot" means. I don't think I have ever seen that message during bootup. If you can give us some additional info, like what other messages you can see when booting up, that would be helpful.

Yes, that's most likely because the correct command is XFree86 -configure.

Try using that instead, and let us know the result.

You can also run the RedHat X configuration tool with the command redhat-config-xfree86.

Good luck.

Donboy,

You are correct. I don't get that far before the system locks up. The exact message is "intializing firstboot settings" or something to that effect. I'm going to try a few things and I'll write down what I see at that point.

Motub,

Thank you...heading off to try that now. I'll let you know.

All who have helped this far...my thanks! Glad to know there's a place I can ask questions without be beaten with a penguin wing!

Regards,
Paul

Hi,
Welcome to the Linux world Paul!!
firstboot is a deamon that is in latest Redhat/Fedora distros.
it runs in GUI mode to help users set up there new install of linux
for ex. set time and date.

when it gets to this point try
pressing this key combo to get to a prompt
CTRL+ALT+F1

then log in as root and what ever u set the
root password to at install time

if that works you can run all the command suggested above


good luck,
Michael

i forgot to tell you in my last message
a deamon is to Linux/unix what
a service is to windoze.

Michael

i have just installed fedora core 1 using instalation disk created from the first iso file
in dual boot mode as this is what i wanted.

Grub version 0.93 (639k lower/261056k upper memory)

Fedora Core(2.4.22-1.2115.nptl
Dos

Dos lets me boot into windows no problem at all.

but Fedora core just goes through the motions and ends up with a long list of

modeprobe: modeprobe:Can't locate modual block-major errors

could some one explain in detail what i am doing rong as i am compleatly new to the linux world

Alternatively (if that doesn't work), you could also boot from install CD 1 to get into rescue mode, which should allow you to boot the installed system in single-user (root, text-only) mode, from which you definitely could configure X and whatever else needs it.

Hang in there, we'll get you sorted .

bumble, we'll be glad to help you.
Please start a new thread by pressing the
"New THREAD" button in the newbie section.
i'll watch for ur post.

michael

Here's some information for all of you trying to help this newbie get going:

Fedora Core 1 installed properly.

Grub is controlling the boot processes. These are my options in Grub:

1 - Fedora Core (2.4.22-1.2115 nptlsmp)
2 - Fedora Core-up (2.4.22-1.2115 nptl)
3 - DOS

Choice number one is the default and boots automatically within 6 seconds

When I choose option 1, this is what I get:

I pretty nice GUI with a progress bar and the choice to see processes.
If I choose to watch the processes load, here are the last three that start

starting xfs [ok]
starting anacron [ok]
starting atd [ok]
staring firstboot

and this is where everything stops. The message at the progress bar is "starting first-time boot configuration". At this point...nothing responds on the computer. The mouse is dead, the keyboard is dead and CNTL-ALT-F1 does nothing.

Choice number 2 goes as follows:

The GUI loads up to "setting hostname" then I appear to go into a text based process that stops for a moment with "press I to enter Interactive Setup". The the computers continues to load for a bit and eventually comes to the following prompt

"Your system appears to have shut down uncleanly. Press Y within 1 seconds to force file system integrity check"
Then it proceeds with
Remounting root filesystem in read-write mode [ok]
Activating swap partitions [ok]
Finding moudle dependencies [ok]
Checking Filesystems [ok]
/boot: recovering jounal [ok]
/boot: clean 42/26104 files, 11960/104388 blocks [ok]
Mounting local filesystems [ok]
Enabling local filesystem quotas [ok]
Enabling swap space [ok]
Initializing firewire controller (ohci1394) [ok]

then the HD light blinks for a bit and stops. I can eventually get the system to reboot by repeated hitting CNTL-ALT-Del where I get something to the tune of "MD - recovery process has reawakened" and the system will then reboot.

That's it...nothing else. At one point last night, I did get past firstboot to a GUI that was going to gather more information but it locked up before I could hit "Next".

Now that that's out of the way...here's the prompt I get when I run "Linux Rescue" from CD1 of the Fedora Core 1 Installation:

-/bin/sh-2.05b#

Is that correct? the only thing that seems to work from that prompt is "Help". I get "Invalid Command" when I try "XFree86 -configure" at that point.

I think that's everything. I'm going to try it again and hit CNTL-ALT-F1 when it locks up to be sure that I can't try what Youngstorm told me to try AND I'll figure out what that little bit of text was that I missed at "Enabling swap space" above is just in case it's important.

Thanks again for all the help so far!

--------------------------------------------------------

Addendum @ 5/23pm:

Ok...I've tried all the suggestions you've all tried. I HAVE been able to get to the Login screen twice and managed to login as Root once. On both occasions, the computer locked up tighter that heck and would proceed no further.

Also, I was able to get to the First Boot GUI again but I'm not sure how. However...as soon as I get there, the computer hangs again.

I'm sure I've done something wrong, but I'm unsure where and what to do about it at this point. Hopefully, some of the information I've posted above will help one of you help me.

One more question and I'll disappear for a bit. When I get to this prompt in Linux Rescue Mode:

-/bin/sh-2.05b#

What do I do from there to get to ANY area where I could solve the problem?

Regards,
Paul

dont give up Paul, we'll get you through this.
Now that you can get to a prompt we can
get down to bussiness.
First, do you have a second computer so we can talk
while you hack through this?

Michael

Do you actually have multiple processors (CPUs) in this machine? If not, that may be the problem-- you're using a SMP kernel, and it's looking for a second processor that does not exist.

Does the second choice

2 - Fedora Core-up (2.4.22-1.2115 nptl)

give the same problems?