HW changes, can't enter X

[oldgeezer]

H/d installed. Made some hardware changes, notably video cards/CD-RWs and now end up at 'box login:'. Startx gives all sorts of error messages and wants me to report some files. Can change to root and cd, ls, cat but as a recent refugee from another OS, clueless about proceeding. Don't even know how/where to use a line editor in Linux. All help welcome;needs to be extremely explicit - please don't cite Unix line statements at me! I'm trying - very trying.
Very many thanks,

[Stephen]

H/d installed. Made some hardware changes, notably video cards/CD-RWs and now end up at 'box login:'. Startx gives all sorts of error messages and wants me to report some files. Can change to root and cd, ls, cat but as a recent refugee from another OS, clueless about proceeding. Don't even know how/where to use a line editor in Linux. All help welcome;needs to be extremely explicit - please don't cite Unix line statements at me! I'm trying - very trying.
Very many thanks,

My suggestion to you would be:

1. Boot from the CD and get a working configuration for the X server.
2. Copy the configuration to your HD install by mounting the HD and copying the file /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 to the HD. These steps in a console window (the clam shell icon on the taskbar)

sudo mount /dev/hd?? /mnt/hd??
sudo cp /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 /mnt/hd??/etc/X11/XF86Config-4

Reboot and you now should be able to login graphically. replace the ?? with the drive letter and partition number of your HD install.

Or you could from your HD install as root from the console login you can already access (where you were doing the ls, cat, etc...) dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86 to reconfigure the xserver to recognize your new video card.

If your new CD/RW replaced another cdrom it should be automatically recongized and you will be able to access it otherwise you will have to edit the file /etc/fstab and create a new entry for the cdrw post back with details as to number of drives, location on the cables (master/slave) if you need help with that.

[oldgeezer]

Thanks a bundle Stephen. I tried some of your excellent suggestions and also tried to enter some values from the Sybex book. Events moved on and so did the clock! So I reformatted (I am a newcomer, nothing is lost at this experimental stage). Now I am having difficulty reinstalling! Some error message seems to crop up every time. At least the CD works reliably every time. I might just be back to you - bank on it! Appreciate.

[Stephen]

Thanks a bundle Stephen. I tried some of your excellent suggestions and also tried to enter some values from the Sybex book. Events moved on and so did the clock! So I reformatted (I am a newcomer, nothing is lost at this experimental stage). Now I am having difficulty reinstalling! Some error message seems to crop up every time. At least the CD works reliably every time. I might just be back to you - bank on it! Appreciate.

What errors are you getting on the install? You may want to try to install by using knoppix 2 at the boot: prompt and just run the install script from the console without KDE running at all.