Unable to run X; only boots to terminal; ATI

[Malice Mythic]

ok im new to linux, i use to have a old HP Pavilion 550w and it fell off the top of my desk.... then my powersuply broke on me.. so i upgraded to a 550w suply and nvidia 4200 128 mb card.. my pc jumped in potential in wow from 4.5 fps to 20-40 in low pop areas... i decide well if 128 was good 256 is gonna wow the crap outa me... well i found a ati radion X19somthin 256mbs and it was 30 bucks so i jumped on it... go to install and my motherboards agp got chipped off.... and a transformer blew on it... so i order a new board and processor combo, asus xmotherboard+ 3.06 ghz processor for 140 bucks... new case to house it all 30$.. i construct it all and my recovery partisian screws over.. so i frag the 65 gb hd (at this point the only parts from my 550w are the 65gb hdd and 256mb ram card) and grab a linux mag that has the fc5 on it... after tinkering around i install it.... and i get locked up on the login for 2 days b4 figureing out the root user.. thank god i remember the pass... but i hate this whole text thing, i run SETUP and X CONFIGURATIONS and i get it to act like i want it but i can only do monitor stuff nothing else.. so im learning little by little and i know i cant tackel linux in a day so im crashing into it and trying to figure this out... im 16 and know alot about this and WINE but can some one help me set up a linux desk top?

thanks
Malicious Mythic

[tebbens]

Dude, that was a hard read... wowed the crap outta me.

What do you mean by "i can only do monitor stuff nothing else" ?
What exactly would you like to do ? ( Please be specific! )

[Malice Mythic]

ok, when im at the black screen saying "localhost" and i log in using the "root" host name, i put in my password, screen stays black and only accepts keystrokes, no interactive interface like windows, i type SETUP as a command and a blue screen comes up i go to "x configuration" and it flashes to what looks and acts similar to win xp... but the only thing that is up is a tab that has display info... i want fc5 to load up like that every time, but lets me do other things that adjust display

[Malice Mythic]

crap i ment that lets me do other things THAN display

[jim]

searchthe forum for the ATI drivers livina rpms for the ati card. since i don't have a ati card i won't be much help. A better title will get you better help

[bob]

If I understand you, you want to install programs and configure things without going to command-line? Well, you can do a lot with a little. First of all, open that terminal and sign in as root (su -), then type: 'yum install yumex'. Okay, that will give you a gui version of yum that will allow you to update your programs, install new ones and remove ones you no longer want, all without going to the command line. HOWEVER, if you can bear just a bit of it, have you checked out these sites?:

http://stanton-finley.net/fedora_cor...ion_notes.html
http://www.fedorafaq.org/

These will give you a lot of excellent program tips and tweaks. Be a bit cautious though - the two sites talk about different methods of using yum. There can be conflicts: http://stanton-finley.net/fedora_cor...s.html#Warning So, pick one way - I'd choose the livna from the FedoraFAQ - as default, and you can still add the other repositories and then use yumex to enable them when you need to use them.

Hope that helps... Oh, and for a class look to your distro, check out these sites: http://www.gnome-look.org/ and http://www.kde-look.org/

Edit: QUICK POINT - make sure you're not logging into the desktop as root, log in as user and then use the root password when you need to. If you make a mistake while logged in as root, you can lose everything!

[Malice Mythic]

thanks to you both, im going to do a little more looking into all this and Jim, i unhooked my ati card and am using my onboard card for the while im still learnin then im going to install it but thanks for the driver info, so far linux is a bit complex, but with a comunity like this im going to enjoy learning