Description of problem: This was seen on HP Integrity ia64. Not sure if this is an anaconda or firstboot issue but my guess is anaconda is what tells firstbot how to run. I did a VNC install. When the system booted up it started the X server and ran firstboot in graphical mode. This defeats the advantage vnc gives for not needing to be physically at the system. In this case the system does have a video card however there is not keyboard or montitor so it is essentially headless. Note that this stops the boot until firstboot terminates so you never get a login prompt on the console. If I do a text install it properly runs firstboot in text mode. In RHEL3/4 a vnc install would also cause firstboot to be run in text mode. Note, VNC installs have been broken (for my hardware at least) for quite some time. This is the first I have been successful in getting a VNC install to work so I don't know when this change first happend. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): rawhide-20060614 anaconda-11.1.0.33-1 firstboot-1.4.11-1 How reproducible: 100% Steps to Reproduce: 1. do a vnc install 2. reboot and see if firstbot tries to start the X server 3. Actual results: firstboot runs in graphical mode Expected results: firstboot should run in text mode or firstboot could run on a vnc server (which would be a nice feature). Additional info:
We plan on having VNC installs set up VNC for post-installation eventually, which would fix your problem about not being able to see what's going on. If you want finer grained control over vnc and firstboot during installation, you can always use kickstart. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 173168 ***