frederick

I have just recently gotten my hands on Redhat Linux 9. I have used Microsoft systems on every computer I've had, so I'm more than a bit lost when it comes to Linux. I installed it on my AMD k6-2 450 PC, with an onboard Trident Cyberblade AGP video card. Linux installation starts up fine, it installs it and everything works fine, until I restart my computer. It starts up, loads the OS selector screen, then I select Linux (the only option), it goes through a couple more loading things, then the weirdest thing happens. The screen fills with random ANSII characters, and just scrolls through them. If I let it set, the monitor eventually goes blank, and typing causes the ANSII characters to change a little bit, but otherwise accomplishes nothing whatsoever. I tried to reinstall using different options to the same result. The last time that I reinstalled it, I used all the recommended options and just pretty much let the installation program set everything up itself, to once again the same effect. I thought that it might be a problem with the resolution setting or the display or something, so when I reinstalled, i set it to the lowest video settings I could, and guess what happened? Yep, the ANSII characters again. The installation program automatically detects my video card, so i don't think that's it, although my monitor does show up as an 'unknown monitor' but when i set it a generic monitor it didn't change anything (i bought the monitor at a yard sale 6 years ago, and have never had any problems with it, so i don't think that's it) I realize that this is most likely something really small and stupid, but like I said, I've never worked with Linux before, so any help whatsoever would be greatly appreciated. THANK YOU

Ok, nevermind the last post. Cause obviously not only am i a genius, but a patient one at that.... (yay for sarcasm) All I needed to was wait for a couple minutes and Linux booted right up. So I configured it and got everything how I liked it, but now I have another problem. It's REALLY slow. I checked the meminfo to see if Linux recognized all my RAM, and it did, all 380-some Megs of it. It also recognized my processor as an AMD k6 3D, so now I'm kinda stumped. The whole system seems lagging, when I open any program, it just looks at me like a dumbstruck child for a few minutes, then it may open the program or it may not. Even opening menus and folders seems to be sluggish. I checked the requirements for linux on redhat's website and everything well exceeds the requirements, so now I'm kinda stumped. Any suggestions or...well anything would help me immensely - THANK YOU!