Well 1stly, sincere apologies, you are absolutely right, xf86config is no longer there in RedHat9.
Try this instead:
When you boot if your machine CONTINUALLY tries to start up X over and over do the following (1) else if X gives up trying to start or doesn't start at all and you are left with just a text login and no X server running go to (2),
(1) Get to a text login by pressing Ctrl and Alt and an F-key (any F1 thru F4) together until you see a text login screen you can use. Log in as root. Edit the file /etc/inittab like this (read the warning after this command 1st too):
vim /etc/inittab
*AND DON'T PRESS ANY KEYS STRAIGHT AWAY!, MOST KEYS IN vi/vim ACT AS COMMAND-KEYS, YOU CAN'T JUST TYPE STRAIGHT AWAY* (vi is almost always guaranteed to be there on every system for situations like this however)
If you did press some keys and messed up the file press ':' (i.e. SHIFT and ; ) and at the : prompt at the bottom type q! then Enter. Re-run vim as above.
Now use the cursor keys to move down without pressing any letter keys until you see a line like this:
id:5:initdefault:
Move the cursor until it is under the 5 and press 'r' then '3' (no quotes, just each key) to replace the 5 with 3 so the line is now
id:3:initdefault:
Now type ':' (i.e. SHIFT ; ) and you'll see a command prompt : appear at the bottom of the screen. Type wq here and Enter.
If anything "unexpected" happens in vi/vim press 'u' to Undo.
Now type reboot -n at the command line
The machine should reboot in run-level 3, (text login).
(2) If you can login in text mode fine anyway or you have done the above, type:
XFree86 -configure
The screen should go blank briefly and a test XFree86Config.new will be created in your /root directory.
To test the X server with this type
XFree86 -xf86config /root/XF86Config.new
If this works copy this file to the usual place like this:
cp /root/XF86Config.new /etc/X11/XF86Config
If you edited the run level in (1) use vim again as before to change the 3 back to a 5, save with ':' then wq and reboot again with
reboot -n
What bothers me is I don't hold out much hope for this doing anything more than would have been done during the install :-\
If this doesn't work I can't help much more I'm afraid, I'm not an expert with X (as you have seen
) and have not used RH9 with a laptop. The only other things I could suggest are no doubt what you have been trying, search linux forums, especially RedHat 9 related, and basically see if anyone else has experienced this problem with RH9 and a similar setup.
Hope this helps in some way however. Sorry if I have caused any inconvenience.
