Installing Fedora 9 - Problems


Recommended Posts

Just post if you run into anything, and we will see what we can do to help. (Y)

and so it begins!

before i start ill post my hardware:

Q6600 @ 3Ghz

4Gb DDR2 OCZ

Abit IP35 Pro

750Gb Sata II HDD

Geforce 9600

so i burned fedora this morning, formated my hard drive, did a clean install of vista, installed sp1, then went on to installing fedora.

i restarted my pc, tossed in the fedora cd, it starts doing stuff, says "initializing hardware" then says "disabling IRQ 18" the screen hangs for 3 minutes, then the pretty little boot screen comes up, i select the first option, "install or update" it does a couple things than comes to "anaconda" says "Geforce 9600GT Detected" then the screen goes blank, and nothing happens.

after searching for a while i found a couple other threads about it which suggested booting with the generic drivers using "linux=skipddc vesa", so i did that and it worked fine.

THEN, (heres the current problem) after getting into the installation setup, and selecting my language/place im greeted with a nice error message.

"Error opening /dev: Invalid argument"

after clicking cancel 4 or 5 times, it gives me a debug screen, and restarts my computer. :(

this guy managed to fix the same problem but im not sure what to do still :s, im not using a sata dvd drive.

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?p=1012367

Link to comment
Share on other sites

looks like i got it working.

all i had to do was read things :o

at the first boot menu i added "linux=skipddc vesa irqpoll".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

now im strugling to install the nvidia drivers :p :(

only distro ive used before is ubuntu.

im stumbling through everything to get this to work, but im pretty hopeless right now, im going to bed in a minute.

the nvidia drivers are a .run file, and i cant figure out how to install them,

im useless in terminal.

Edited by Berserk87
Link to comment
Share on other sites

i think i fixed everything.

i was running as root before, so i made a new user, and now it asks for a password, then installs.

as fun as talking to myself has been, im going to bed :p

another edit:

i tryed installing the nvidia drivers again, but i got an error about X server, and to turn it of blabblbab.

i took a screenshot to post, but then fedora crashed, i restarted and now it says i have no internet connection :blink:

Edited by Berserk87
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, in Fedora you have to do several things manually that Ubuntu will do with just a couple of clicks.

For installing the nVidia file, if you use the .run file, you need to kill X to run it. You can do that by specifying init 3 as root in a terminal to force the system into runlevel 3 (text mode only - no X). Then you can run the file.

However, since you are installing the driver manually (and it is matched to the kernel), every time a new kernel is released and you install it with yum, your video will break and you will have text mode only until you manually install the matching new nVidia file. It kind of sucks doing it that way.

The way I recommend is to use yum to install your video driver. That way when yum sees a new kernel available, it will automatically also get the matching nVidia driver for you. No text mode on reboot. No mucking around with manually running files as root. (Y)

There is a procedure here: http://www.fedorafaq.org/#nvidia

It basically just has you add the "livna" repository to your yum configuration. Livna is where the nVidia drivers are stored, so if yum is allowed to look there, it will see them and install. I highly recommend using this method. :yes:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What you have to do is stop gdm because gdm will keep starting X again even if you kill it (ctrl-alt-backspace). So switch to a tty like tty1 by pressing ctrl-alt-F1. Well actually I have no idea how Fedora works... but first find out how to stop a daemon and then stop gdm and then run the the nvidia setup from the tty.

Or you can use envy if it is available for Fedora and that can do it without having to switch gdm off (but you will need to restart X).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

... So switch to a tty like tty1 by pressing ctrl-alt-F1.

...

Switching to a TTY (Fedora, Ubuntu, Slackware, what-not) will not stop X. X will still be running on whatever session it was started on. CTRL+ALT+F7 (typically) will pop you back to displaying X. You need to just shut it down with the init 3 command.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes but when you stop gdm that will kill the X server that gdm started. Ctrl-alt-backspace does shut down X, but something like gdm just spawns a new X automatically. Switching to run level 3 (at least from my Debian understanding) would just stop any daemons that are supposed to be stopped when entering this run level (such as gdm) so it does basically the same thing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I never said CTRL+ALT+[backspace]. As you stated, that would just trigger a restart of X.

I said init 3

That will shut down X, and put you into runlevel 3. It will not trigger a restart of x/k/gdm. With X shut down, you would be able to run the nVidia .run file (which I already recommended against).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

so...why wouldnt they try to automate this more?

im in terminal typing "init 3" and it says command not found =\

im on the last step "enable the driver"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Your PATH might not be set up to include /sbin/

Type

/sbin/init 3

so...why wouldnt they try to automate this more?
They do. It's called Ubuntu. :shiftyninja: :whistle:
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, running as root, you type /sbin/init 3, and nothing happens? No errors? No anything but your prompt coming back for another command?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

yep

looks like i got the drivers working.

now i want to setup compiz fusion and that fun stuff. play with some gnome themes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, if you are already in a text terminal (like what Borbus mentioned about switching to a different TTY), then I don't think you will see anything when you enter that command. It will kill the X session you don't see anyhow.

If you opened up a terminal window within your X environment and you issue that command as root, the whole GUI world will collapse around you as you are dropped to a text environment.

I'm not much into the eye-candy thing (I am a flusbox user - kinda minimalistic), so I cannot help as you play with transparency/shading/zoom/rotate effects, I am afraid.

Glad you got your nVidia driver installed. Fedora has you do these things somewhat manually.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

im trying to install vlc player , and it keeps telling me "cannot install without a network connection" which i obviously have.

at the same time everytime i open firefox, its opening in "offline mode"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

/sbin/ifconfig

You can also use Fedora's network "control panel" to see if your card is listed and active.

Do you use DHCP?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

yes, i do.

network card shows as active, but the add/remove software keeps giving me the "cannot so and so while offline"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The "UP" tells me the interface is activated. It has what appears to be a valid IP address assigned by your router and I see packets sent and received.

Can you ping your router? It is probably address 192.168.0.1, based on what I see your IP is set to.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

the culprit was "network manager" seems to be flawed currently.

i opened services, disabled it from startup and stopped it, now vlc is installing :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Have you done a "yum update" yet, to ensure you have all the latest updates?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.