Debian & X11 not working, need alittle help should be easy
 

I'm running a few forums on RHEL/Centos servers I was recomended to try debian, I'm going to take it for a test drive as a home OS running a webserver. I might use it for media/webbrowesing, etc if its nice.

Anyways I've used centos with xfce, Just used the simple way with yum :)

Now I did apt-get install xfce

I'm confused how to get XFCE to load but I think you run something in /usr/bin anyways i tryed multiple things in root and not in root I always get gtk cannot open display error. I saw via google searches thats caused by x not wanting to run the app in root, wait I also tryed running the apps with my user account.

So I'm confused what I did wrong, I also removed xfce and installed gnome to see if it was a xfce problem, I also installed xchat after and get the same error.

I believe I need to apt-get the ati driver or install the ati driver some how, also is there anyway to use a generic driver first? I don't know anything about debian atm though I did get it installed after I get display working I should be fine its just a pain in the butt switching from debian to windows just to google the problem, I find some possible fix, switch back to find out x server still gives a error.

Thx for any help

Try to install a session manager? : A program that lets you choose the WM or DM you want (kde,gnome,Enlightenment,Xfce,..) and start it:

apt-get intall kdm
or
apt-get install gdm

Then you should have a menu in kdm/gdm when you restart

For the future, you should tell which debian you use (sarge/etch/sid).

I'll try

THis really sucks I hate no display, means no firefox to google to fix problems :(

Somehow I think I need to configure x which idk how to do :scratch:

You only need to be able to use vi to edit xorg.conf and to look in the log in /var/log/*** (maybe Xorg..*)
You can also try this from the console if you don't want gdm and kdm