I've had it up to here with Windows that's why my main OS is Linux. Just made the switch. Because of Windows I had to reformat my HDD and start all over again which is a usual Windows ritual because Windows can't handle too many programs on its partition. But anyways, I installed Linux Mandrake 9.1 again and thought I chose the boot login and everything else the same as I did last time but apparently I didn't, I done something different. Everything boots up just fine, I get all "OK"'s when booting but I get to a non-graphical interface whereas I login successfully but can't get to the GUI and being pampered by Windows all these years you get scared of those and get stuck and don't know what to do. I tried "help" and couldn't even figure out how to do the Linux version of "dir /p" so I could read alittle at a time and couldn't figure out anything. Can someone please tell me how to get out of the text interface at boot and get to the GUI Linux screen so I'll know what I'm doing. Thank you.

Well you have two options:

1. After you login you can type:

startx

to bring up your window manager

2. To boot directly to the gui edit your /etc/inittab file and change

id:3:initdefault:
to
id:5:initdefault:

does teh X server actually fail or do you simply go to a normal login prompt? if you configure X ok during install, just type "startx" and that should load it fine. after that you can change it in your real purty control center, or just edit /etc/inittab by hand.

have a read through the relevant parts of the rute guide in my sig and bookmark it.

dir /p = ls | less

After you log in, type startx and see what happens. If you configured the X server correctly, the gui should start.

# Mandrake links
Mandrake home page
Mandrake Users website
Easy software management: Red Carpet
Maximum RPM
rpmfind
You didn't install the developmental packages? As root, command:
urpmi gcc

In the future, please use more helpful thread titles and watch your language please, this is a public forum that anyone can see.

Thanks.

Sorry. But thanks guys. All I done was type startx and it worked just fine. And thanks for the links too.