CentOS - Jan 2012 - blue screen instead of login screen

I installed Centos 6.2/i386 on a machine last night with a 1920x1080 monitor.
The installer ran in graphical mode and looked fine.  After the install was
finished I rebooted and ran through the "firstboot" stuff (set up
user, etc)
with no problem and, again, it looked good.

After that, when I should have seen the gdm login screen, all I got was the
blue background but not the box with the usernames in it, so there is no way to
log in.

"telinit 3", login to the text console, no problem.  Type
"startx", back to the
same empty blue screen that gdm shows me.

[root at ws194 log]# cat /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1   localhost localhost.localdomain ws194 ws194.ltsp
::1         localhost localhost.localdomain ws194 ws194.ltsp
[root at ws194 log]# uname -a
Linux ws194.ltsp 2.6.32-220.2.1.el6.i686 #1 SMP Thu Dec 22 18:50:52 GMT 2011
i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux [root at ws194 log]# 

I rsynced /etc/skel to /home/myusername before running startx but that made no
difference.  Still got the blank blue screen.

I tried disabling the Composite extension as directed here:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/unable-to-startx-after-fresh-install-%5Bwarning-first-time-linux-user%5D-888683/

Nothing changed.

I don't see anything in /var/log/Xorg.0.log that looks too interesting; it
appears that X figures it's running fine.

This was working fine with a smaller monitor on Centos 5.7.  Plus the Centos 6
installer looked fine, and the blue screen also looks nice and crisp,

-- 
MELVILLE THEATRE ~ Real D 3D Digital Cinema ~ www.melvilletheatre.com
www.creekfm.com - FIFTY THOUSAND WATTS of POW WOW POWER!

On Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:57:58 -0600
Frank Cox wrote:
> I installed Centos 6.2/i386 on a machine last night with a 1920x1080
monitor.
> The installer ran in graphical mode and looked fine.  After the install was
> finished I rebooted and ran through the "firstboot" stuff (set up
user, etc)
> with no problem and, again, it looked good.
> 
> After that, when I should have seen the gdm login screen, all I got was the
> blue background but not the box with the usernames in it, so there is no
way
> to log in.
I've been playing with this some more and while I haven't found a
solution I
think I can now better define the problem.

If I boot that computer with kernel parameter "nomodeset", I don't
get the
fancy "Centos 6" graphic with the spinning doodad; instead I get a
white and
blue bar across the bottom of the screen and then it ends up at the gdm login
screen.  Which looks normal and lets me log in.  And my desktop comes up as it
should.

BUT the screen resolution is only 1280x1024.  I think (though I forgot to check
for sure) it's using the VESA driver instead of the Intel driver when I use
the
"nomodeset" kernel parameter.

Booting up normally (without the "nomodeset" parameter) the screen
comes up in
1920x1080 resolution like it should, with the Centos 6 graphic and the spinning
doodad, but it ends up with the gdm background screen and no way to log into it.

However:

If I boot into runlevel 3 and log in and then run startx, I get the blue
background screen and apparently my whole desktop is running but it's just
not
showing up!  I discovered that if I right-click on that blue background screen
after logging in and running startx, I get the "Create Folder/Create
Launcher/Create Document/Open in Terminal/etc" menu that you usually get
when
right-clicking on the gnome desktop.  Opening a terminal from that menu gets me
gnome-terminal, and if I type "gnome-panel" into that terminal I get
an error
message telling me that gnome-panel is already running.  Looking at a list of
running processes shows me gnote and a whole bunch of gnome stuff; i.e. the
gnome desktop is actually up and running.  The panel and desktop icons are just
not showing up on the screen; only the desktop background.  However, if I
right-click on the desktop background and "Create Folder", that folder
now
shows up on the desktop.  (It's the only thing on the desktop.)

"killall gnome-panel" appears to work (it appears to do nothing,
actually, but
that's normal) but the gnome-panel still doesn't show up.  Normally,
when you
type killall gnome-panel the panel goes away and comes right back.  Since
it's
already gone (but apparently still running) it stays gone even though it
appears to restart like it should.

This leads me to the conclusion that the problem can't be that any part of
the
gnome installation is missing because it works at the lower 1280x1024
resolution.

I'm open to any ideas.


-- 
MELVILLE THEATRE ~ Real D 3D Digital Cinema ~ www.melvilletheatre.com
www.creekfm.com - FIFTY THOUSAND WATTS of POW WOW POWER!