Dear Friends,
I am new to this forum (to be true it's the first time that
I post a message to a forum)
I would like to know your opinion about a behaviour of my
Linux System that I don't understand

My Hardware:
Dell Dimension 8400
Chipset Intel 925X Express ICH6-R
Intel Pentium 4 540 HT 3.20 GHZ
1 GB Memory
1 SATA HardDrive 160 GB
256MB nVidia GeForce 6800
My Software:
WindowsXP SP2
Fedora FC3

I work satisfactorily with both OSs.
(I say "satisfactorily" because I could not install the nVidia
driver in FC3, but this is a problem we might speak of, in case, later)

My current problem is:

I boot Fedora (choosing "Combination" in BIOS)
I login as "vito"
I open an Xterminal
I switch to superuser:
> su -
Password: **********
At the next prompt I write:
> telinit 3
in order to switch to text mode and restart as root.
At this point I would expect a login prompt, as I was used to in the past
with a RedHat6.2 and a Matrox card on an homemade PC.
Instead, the screen goes blank (i.e. black) and the system looks
idle or stopped (no disk activity).
Pressing the "enter" key, the following 6 lines appear on the screen:
Starting pcmcia: [OK]
Starting irqbalance: [OK]
Starting lm_sensors: [OK]
Starting automount:No Mountpoints defined [OK]
Starting hpoj: [OK]
Starting anacron: [OK]
with the cursor blinking at the left, under the last line.
Again the system appears idle.
Pressing CONTROL-ALT-DEL the system closes (several lines with
"Shutting" prefix) and shuts down.

Is it a bug? Should I do some special setting in the BIOS?

I will apppreciate any comment or suggestion. I feel the Dimension8400
(configured as above) oriented mainly to Windows. Am I wrong?
Thanks and Greetings

Vito

e-mail: vitodiblas@iol.it

Look at this article.

For more information, see this article as well.

Hi danleff,
thanks for your fast reply.
I read and tried unsuccessfully the hints of the two articles.

The procedure suggested there:
Control+Alt+F1
Enter as root
Enter telinit 3 (or: init 3)

gives the same result on Fedora3/Dimension8400 (i.e. blank screen, 6 lines after hitting enter, shutdown after ControlAltDel)
(Note that also the above new procedure works well
on RedHat6.2/OldPC instead)

Vito Di Blas

e-mail: vitodiblas@iol.it