Release Found: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5

Problem

When using an ATI HD3750 display adapter in text mode, the display works correctly but when the X server starts, you encounter problems with displaying the graphical environment - for example, only a white screen is displayed.

Solution

Follow these steps to manually edit the X configuration to use a different driver.

Note: if the system is having trouble booting into graphical mode, boot into runlevel 3. To enter runlevel 3 follow these steps or see related articles in the Knowledgebase:

• Start up the system and hit the space bar when the blue GRUB boot screen comes up. This will stop the boot process.

• Highlight the version the system is booting and press "e".

• Highlight the line that begins with the word "kernel" and press "e" again.

• At the end of that line, put a space and the number "3".

• Press Enter.

• Press "b" to boot.

Once the system comes up, log in as root, or login as a normal user and switch to the root user.

Backing up  the X server configuration

The following command will create a back-up of the xorg.conf X server configuration:

# cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup

Changing the graphics driver to the generic Vesa driver

In a text editor, open the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf and find the "Driver" section. It will look similar to the following:

Section "Device"
     Identifier  "Videocard0"
     Driver      "r500"
EndSection

Note: Different systems will have different configurations, the above is an illustrative example. Change the driver from "r500" to "vesa".  Make sure to leave the "Identifier" line the same. After the change, the above example would look like following:

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "Videocard0"
        Driver      "vesa"
EndSection

Try starting X with the startx command.