Having installed Linux Mandrake and completed all steps, I now find myself unable to pass the first screen:

After the customary Mandrake Linux release...
Kernel ....

comes localhost login: (say) user
password:

I punch them in

Then comes
last login ...time ... on vc/1
[user@localhost user]$

and that's the end of it.

A lonely cursor remains blinking its eye in the screen
and I cannot even think about going any further

Why does it have to be so difficult and complex?

I registered myself properly and chose both KDE and Gnome Graphical Environments at the Package Group Selection installation stage.

The question is: how do I log on now and what have I done incorrectly.

Thank you for your patience and for taking time for dealing with fools like me.

Looking forward to your reply.

Once you are here [user@localhost user]$ enter:

"startx" without the " "

When you get to that point, type "startx" (without the quotes) then press the enter key. KDE or Gnome (whichever you chose ats default during install) will start. Hopefully, someone else here will help you boot to the GUI, if that is what you want.

Just tried this startx step...
amounted to Config Error
not a declared device
X10 fatal 10 error 104 (connection reset by peer) ...

you know, I just cannot put my finger on what I did wrong during the installation phase, if at all. No errors came up during the installation phase whatsoever.

Im having a similiar problem, except when i installed mandrake 8.2 (9.2 was too much for my machine to handle) i did have errors. i logged them all so i know waht they are, but i cant login as youve said. i even tried typing 'root' in both the user name and password sections, but it didnt work. another thing different that i keep getting is a 'bash-2.05$' (something extremely close to that, i have it logged but not with me right now)

any clues to what that is? i still need to try 'startx' and then ill see if THAT works...