Hi, I recently downloaded the three .iso files for Redhat 9.0 and burned them to disks. I tested the media and all is well. The problem comes in when I try to install the OS. I boot from the first CD and the welcome screen appears. I try just hitting enter to start the graphical installation, I try the noprobe option so it doesn't probe for hardware, I try all the other options but no matter what I do it does the same thing. It'll start, it'll look like its loading files into memory or something. I also see my hardware configuration whizz by in command prompt style, then it loads the anaconda program. It scans for my video card and gets the one integraded into my motherboard, not the one in my PCI slot, it scans for my monitor and says its "unknown", it scans for my mouse and finds that just fine. Then it flashes something about an X server and my screen blanks out and a couple seconds later the CD stops spinning and it'll just sit there for like ten minutes until I get frustrated and reboot. Any ideas? The results of entering no probe is a little different. It'll tell me no device drivers are entered for my system and displays a list of stuff. I assume its talking about Hard Drives but there's alot of stuff about gigabit this and ethernet that. But anyway, I select the Western Digital hardware option for my Hard Drive and I believe it says something about the device not being installed or not found or something of the sort. But whatever the case, it won't let me continue. I end up rebooting and doing the method listed above and I get stuck. The OS knows the drive is there, it whizzes past in command prompt style along with the rest of my entire hardware configuration. I'm trying to dual boot from a fourty gig drive partitioned into two sections. Partition 1 for Linux at a size of 20gigs and Partition 2 for WinXP at a size of about 17.7gigs. I already loaded WinXP and have all the software installed and defragmented and the first partition is just waiting to be used. I heard that you load linux and it'll let you delete the first partition so you can recreate it and install linux to it but I've never been able to get that far. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Have you tried performing a text-based install? Also, you should install Windows XP first, on the first partition, then install Linux (multiple partitions). Why did you install XP first, but in the 2nd partition? My suggestion is to delete your partitions, then create the 1st partition for XP. Next, install XP. Once this is completed, install Linux (boot the Linux CD and do a "text" install), and then you can create your Linux partitions during the installation, at least one for swap and one for root (/). Good luck.

If you still have programs try burning the CDs at a lot slower speed (4x or 8x?). Some people have problems during installation unless do this.

I found some documents on the redhat website. Oh boy do I know a whole lot of nothing about Linux! I now know what I need to do for partitioning and which OS to install when and which bootloader to put where on my disk. I even figured out the size of the partitions. The manual for installation tells you to go (for windows) and write down all your current hardware info. I did that so it should help with the menu for the hardware it asks me about and I figured out why my monitor blanks out when I try to install. The installation sees my integrated Intel graphics card and not my PCI nvidia. Why I don't know. That still confuses me. But fact is, it doesn't see it, it sees the integrated one I no longer use. So when it starts Anaconda, it switches the video output to the integrated video card and thus my monitor blanks out and goes to sleep because it's no longer recieving a signal. At least that's what I'm thinking is going on. I hope to God that if I switch my graphics card over to the integrated one, the monitor won't blank out. If I run into any more difficulties I can't solve worth nuthin', I'll post them but for now, thanks everybody.

The good thing about the canned distros, like Red Hat, is that they easily install a well-functioning Linux system on the vast majority of machines. The bad thing is that when these canned routines do the wrong thing, it is difficult or impossible to get around the problem. This problem has little to do with Linux (apart from the fact that Linux is not that easy to install) and much to do with Red Hat. It is possible that another disto, e.g. SuSE, would have installed flawlessly. Both SuSE and Mandrake have somewhat better reputations than Red Hat for a nice, easy install. If you paid money for your Red Hat CDs, get in touch with Red Hat and tell them about your problem. They should be able to help you around it. If they can't and you have proof of purchase, you should ask for your money back. Don't expect a quick answer, since these distros don't employ an army of install support people. I really think it's a waste of time to research this yourself, since you are not learning about Linux, just about the Red Hat install routine.