Hey all,

Finally installed Mandrake along with Windows (the family just wont give it up) and I'm stuck. I was booting into KDE but now I'm at a login screen with no clue as to the command to get myself back to using KDE! What did I do wrong? Or, more importantly, how do I get off the line commands and back to the shell? My first hour of using Linux is certainly not the time to be thinking about commands. That's for next week hhhahahh.

Thanks for your help.

I don't know a definite answer, but you could try 'X' or 'startx'.

It sounds like you booted into KDE successfully, but now it is going to a text login prompt? If so, that often means X is misconfigured (like during change of resolution, refresh rate, etc.). When you get the text prompt, login as root and type "startx". If the screen flickers a couple of times and drops you back to a text screen, X needs to be configured properly. To configure X, type "drakconf" as root, that will open the mandrake control center. Use the tab, arrow, and enter keys to navigate the menus to display configuration. Try selecting you monitor, resolution, and refresh rate. Save everything and try "startx" again. Hope that helps.

Thank you so much. I ended up having to load from boot disk and go thru a non existant update. Dont know, yet, what that did to help it but I'm back, BABY!!! hahaha

Yet again, one day of crap from Linux is so much better than a week of Windows!

I am still learing (hahhha read: know nothing about Linux) but, since I was able to install Linux yesterday (with much probs from Windows), I feel so much freer! *throws yoke of ms off shoulders*

sorry, very giddy linux newbie here.