display managers?
 

what exactly is a display manager
i used to have this confused with enviroments like KDE and GNOME but i have been trying to install debian with VMWARE and it asks wichs display manager i should use
gdm
xdm
kdm



i have tried to install debian many time before but no luck i allways selected kdm but this time i choose xdm and i am installing as i type

hopefully it will just work this time


anyways what the diff?

I think you are a little confused, KDE + Gnome are Window Managers + Desktop Environments, where a Display Manager is a different beast altogether.

A Display manager allows graphical logons -
xdm is the X display manager, It has a logo which I believe is disribution dependant (mine's the debian logo on a debian system...) a simple text box for your username and password.
gdm is the Gnome display manager, kdm is the K display manager. I don't have any experience with these, sorry.

ok well the all sound like they should work right?

well vmware thinks otherwise

when installing debian i have picked vesa and vmware and both dont work

yes, to the best of my knowledge they all work. If you post your error message, you could probably get more detailed help.

vesa is a whole different stuff. It refers to graphics emulation from your video card, which seems to not support vesa graphics and that's why vmware is not working right, you may choose not vesa modes at vmware's setup

Hope this helps