[CentOS] trying to install 5.2 on a laptop

On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 10:23 PM, Michael Klinosky <mpk2 at enter.net> wrote:
> Hello.
> I burned a CD with the 5.2 netinstall iso, and installed it onto a
> laptop (Acer Aspire 3680). Note that I'm *totally* new to laptops.
>
> The install went fine. But, when I boot it, it errors at the user login.
> A screen comes up, stating that X11 cannot start, and that it's probably
> the mouse.

It sounds like you have at least the video drivers functioning, if not
the mouse...

> A bit of investigating revealed that there is no Synaptics module
> installed. It will boot into runlevel=3.

Have you verified if the synaptics package itself is installed:

  rpm -q synaptics

If not, is this laptop connected to the Internet?  If so, you can do:

   yum -y install synaptics

This will install the synaptics package, though doesn't install the module.

Once this is done, you can look at the xorg.conf file itself. If
you're not familiar with vi, there's another editor called "nano" that
may be easier the first few times (after that, it pays to learn vi).

The main things you need to verify are the following sections in the xorg.conf:

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    Screen      1  "Screen1" RightOf "Screen0"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Synaptics" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Synaptics"
    Driver         "synaptics"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto-dev"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
EndSection


> The X wiki suggested that I try adding this to /etc/X11/xorg.conf:
> Section "ServerFlags"
>         Option "AllowMouseOpenFail" "1"
> EndSection


>
> Using "cat xorg.conf", I see    Section "InputDevice"   , which refers
> to the Synaptics module.
>
> Being new-ish to linux, I can't figure out the text-based editor (vi) to
> modify the file. I have "System Rescue CD" and "Ultimate Boot CD", but
> (apparently) they don't mount the installed system.
>
> I have some Fedora install disks (if they'd be of any help) - but not a
> rescue CD. It seems like CentOS doesn't have a rescue CD - would
> Fedora's help?
>
> I need to modify xorg.conf, or figure out how to install the Synaptics
> module. How can I do that?