Troubleshooting Your Installation

After you have finished installing Fedora, you can check how the installation went by checking your log files. There are three places to look once the system comes up:

• /tmp/upgrade.log — When upgrading packages, output from each installed package is sent to this file. You can see what packages were installed and if any failed.

• /var/log/dmesg — This file contains the messages that are sent to the console terminal as the system boots up, including messages relating to the kernel being started and hardware being recognized. If a piece of hardware isn’t working, you can check here to make sure that the kernel found the hardware and configured it properly.

• /var/log/boot.log — This file contains information about each service that is started up at boot time. You can see if each service started successfully. If a service fails to start properly, there may be clues in this file that will help you learn what went wrong.

If something was set wrong (such as your mouse) or just isn’t working quite right (such as your video display), you can always go back after Fedora is running and correct the problem. Here is a list of utilities you can use to reconfigure different features that were set during installation:

• Changing or adding a mouse — system-config-mouse

• Changing a keyboard language — system-config-keyboard

• Adding or deleting software packages — system-config-packages or rpm

• Partitioning — fdisk or sfdisk

• Boot loader — /boot/grub/grub.conf (for GRUB); lilo and /etc/lilo.conf (for LILO)

• Networking (Ethernet & TCP/IP) — system-config-network

• Time zone — timeconfig or firstboot

• User accounts — useradd or system-config-users

• Sound — system-config-soundcard

• X Window System — system-config-display

Here are a few other random tips that can help you during installation:

• If installation fails because the installation procedure is unable to detect your video card, try restarting installation in text mode. After Fedora Core is installed and running, use the system-config-display command to configure your video card and monitor. (For some cards, such as those from NVIDIA, you need to get and install special drivers from the manufacturer’s Web site.)

• If installation completes successfully, but your screen is garbled when you reboot, you should try to get Fedora Core to boot to a text-login prompt. To do this, add the words linux 3 to the end of the kernel boot line in GRUB or LILO. Linux will start with the GUI temporarily disabled. Run system-config-display to try to fix the problem. (See Chapter 3 for other advice related to fixing your GUI.)

• If your mouse is not detected during installation, you can use arrow keys and the Tab key to make selections.

• If installation improperly probes your hardware or turns on a feature that causes problems with your hardware, you might be able to solve the problem by disabling the offending feature at the install boot prompt. Try adding one or more of the following after the word linux at the installation boot prompt: ide=nodma (if your system hangs while downloading the image), apm=off or acpi=off (if you experience random failures during install), or nousb, nopcmcia, or nofirewire (if you suspect that install is hanging on devices of those types).

• Probably the best resource for troubleshooting your installation problems is the Red Hat Support site (www.redhat.com/apps/support). Links from that page can take you to documentation, updates and errata, and information about support programs. If you are having problems with a particular piece of hardware, try searching the Solutions Database, using the name of the hardware in the search box. If you are having problems with particular hardware, chances are someone else did, too.