Hi,

I've just installed RH9 as a server. It boots fine and leaves me at the login command line. I can log in as root, add a user, then login as that new user. That's about as far as I've got.

How on earth do I get a GUI running (Gnome/KDE)?

How do I get web browsing?

How do I download and install new programs?

Is any of this possible in server mode, or will I have to reinstall in Workstation mode to get my feet wet?

Try 'startx'.
Not sure what you mean. You mean you want to surf or you want others to access your box? Just fire up mozilla or whatever for the first. Lynx or links may be on your system for console surfing.
Go to a website, download the rpm or source. 'man rpm' for how to install an rpm. './configure; make; make install' for source.
Not sure how a server is fundamentally different from a workstation in most senses. You can strip a server to nothing, but usually it's just a question of emphasis on capabilities and you can do most of what you can do in one in the other.
That was the fast answer - maybe somebody else will come along with the good answer.

for running GUI, try "startx".
( to automaticaly enter GUI, you must change your INIT level to 5, somewhere in the /etc/rc.d/, not sure how )

to get web browser, you must first get connected, you probably have already installed web browsers like mozilla.

when installing programs, you can download source code, and than compile it, which will result in faster program, but is more complicated, or you can download programs in form of .rpm packets ( try man rpm or something ), and than enter "rpm -iv program_name_and_version.rpm" )

This is ( most probably ) possible in server mode, but with your knowledge ( and i'm not far away ), you shuld've chosen the workstation or something like this.

That's all from me, you can expect more help from others.

Cheers for that boys, but I'm gonna need basicer (not a word, I know) help than that,

I'm sitting at my ">" promt, do I just type startx? cos If I do, I tried it last night and it didn't work.

How in gods name to I change my INIT level to 5?

Sorry about this, I'm astonished this is hitting me so hard, I'm usually quite good with this type of stuff, but never used UNIX before.

startx didnt work ? did you install xfree86 ? the xwindows environment ? KDE/GNOME etc. ?

login as root and type

updatedb

locate startx



what does it come up with .. should be something like

/usr/X11R6/bin/startx
/usr/X11R6/man/man1/startx.1x.bz2

you want the /usr/X11R6/bin/startx

either way let us know what it comes back with (ps. updatedb could take a couple mins if you havent done it for a while)

Hm. I suppose it's possible an RH server doesn't come with a GUI. What do you mean 'didn't work'? Did X start to load and crash out? Did you get a 'file not found'? Something else?

To change your runlevel - well, I don't know what RH has or where it is. In Slack I'd do 'joe /etc/inittab' and change the 'default' line. RH is bound to have 'vi' or something symlinked to it but that could be a pain if you're not familiar with it. If nothing else, 'vi /etc/inittab' then hit 'i', quickly and carefully edit the line, and gently hit 'esc' and ':wq' *g* But don't do that until you have a working X to begin with.

You may have to do 'updatedb -u' or something - it's supposed to Just Work, but seems not to initially, sometimes.

And don't worry about it - I expect Linux to be perpetually confusing and it is a different ballgame, but the shock wears off pretty quickly. *g*

Thanks for your help Gents, I'm gonna try all this tonight when I get home.

I really appreciate the help, and I intend not to give up on Linux, windows does suck!

Hi,

I am having similar problems. When I type startx, i get

/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit/xserverrc: /usr/bin/X11/X: No such file or directory

/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit/xserverrc: exec: /usr/bin/X11/X: cannot execute: No such file or directory
giving up.
xinit: Connection refused (errno 111): unable to connect to X server
xinit: No such process (errno 3): Server error.

I'm using Debian 3.0. In tasksel I selected the desktop environment, and I saw gnome and kde being installed (there was no option to install X windows like I've seen in the guides). What am I missing?

Thanks,

Edward

You should probably try new installation, this time workstation, because when a newbie ( like myself ) tries to install X, or do something bit more complicated, it usually doesn't end up got ( again, from my experience )

File "/usr/bin/X11/X" is normally linked to the true X server for your system.
Perhaps you have a non-supported video card, else you need to configure X.

if I remember correctly there is no gui installed when you use the preconfigured server installation so yea re-install as workstation and get something like linux for dummies or somethin just so you can get the basics down. i did that back in january and have been just fine since steadily learning as I go

Your help has been greatly appreciated.

I reinstalled as workstation, and had no problems getting everything working just fine. I have the Gnome thing up and running, and have immediately found it better than Windows.

I am trying to install a player for MPEGS, and have found a program, and downloaded it. It's in a TAR file, which then uncompresses to show loads of files in a folder. I have no idea how to install this, but am sure I'll figure it out, and tips would be handy though.

Thanks for all your help so far.

Alot of tar files are actually source files & con be installed by the following commands:
./configure
make
make install
as root of course

If you are just starting to learn linux though, & I know alot of others may disagree, your best bet to install a new program may be to download the rpm version (if available) & then install that.

Makes sense to me, I did look at all the files, and there were no .rpm files. I kinda like jumping in at the deep end though, so if you could give me a little more instruction, That would be great.

/username/mplayer.tar is the kinda thing I got. so I log in as root, then what? do I do this in Gnome, or command line?

Sorry about this, but I value you peoples knowledge more than a books...

First you need to untar the file.

Note, Linux is case sensitive. It MUST match exactly.

That will make a new directory with the same name without the .tar on the end. type in

Then do what bones996 said. Each of those are a seperate command. A couple of those may take a while to run depending on the size of the file.

Basics here.

<filename> .tar.gz

Always start from the end. You will need to unzip, uncompress, the file first.

gunzip <filename>

Then you can untar the file.

tar -xfv <filename>

Each one of those removes the last bit. Gunzip removes the gz and tar removes the .tar. The tar command creates a directory with the same name less the .tar that contains the original file(s).

Gunzip compresses a file to make it smaller. Tar will take a set of files, can be a few or hundreds, and packages them into one big file.

That should muddy up the water a bit.

Later