Appendix B. Troubleshooting Your Installation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux
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B.4.2. Booting into a Graphical Environment
This information does not apply to users of iSeries systems.
If you have installed the X Window System but are not seeing a graphical desktop environment once
you log into your Red Hat Enterprise Linux system, you can start the X Window System graphical
interface using the command
startx
.
Once you enter this command and press [Enter], the graphical desktop environment is displayed.
Note, however, that this is just a one-time fix and does not change the log in process for future log ins.
To set up your system so that you can log in at a graphical login screen, you must edit one file,
/etc/inittab
, by changing just one number in the runlevel section. When you are finished, reboot
the computer. The next time you log in, you will have a graphical login prompt.
Open a shell prompt. If you are in your user account, become root by typing the
su
command.
Now, type
gedit /etc/inittab
to edit the file with
gedit
. The file
/etc/inittab
will open.
Within the first screen, a section of the file which looks like the following appears:
# Default runlevel. The runlevels used by RHS are:
#
0 - halt (Do NOT set initdefault to this)
#
1 - Single user mode
#
2 - Multiuser, without NFS (The same as 3, if you do not have networking)
#
3 - Full multiuser mode
#
4 - unused
#
5 - X11
#
6 - reboot (Do NOT set initdefault to this)
#
id:3:initdefault:
To change from a console to a graphical login, you should change the number in the line
id:3:initdefault:
from a
3
to a
5
.
Warning
Change
only
the number of the default runlevel from
3
to
5
.
Your changed line should look like the following:
id:5:initdefault:
When you are satisfied with your change, save and exit the file using the [Ctrl]-[x] keys. A message
appears telling you that the file has been modified, and asking you to confirm your change. Type [Y]
for yes.
Now, your next login after reboot will be from the graphical screen.
B.4.3. Problems with the X Window System (GUI)
If you are having trouble getting X (the X Window System) to start, you may not have installed it
during your installation.
If you want X, you can either install the packages from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CD-ROMs or
perform an upgrade.
