LinuxQuestions.org - SuSE New Install -- Graphic Login Fails

Hey all, I am new to Linux, though I've done enough Windows work (and occaisonal interaction with UNIX) that I can make my way around the terminal, I just don't know where some of the things are :)

Anyhow, I installed SuSE 8.1 today, setting it up as a dual-boot with my existing Win98 system. Just wanting to see how easy/quick the install could be I did the least work possible -- letting SuSE suggest partition sizes and even just install the suggested packages. The whole thing was done in twnety minutes perhaps, and even found my network adapter and graphics card. After setting up users the whole thing got ready to actually run for the first time and....nothing. It exited the post-install config window and instead of going to the graphic login screen it instead just loaded a blank screen.

Running the OS in text mode and manually selecting startx gets a similar reaction. It thinks for a while, plays a short clip of what seems to be start-up music, then nothing. The terminal displays an error "Mutex destroy failute: device or resource busy" and when I try to CTL-ALT-Backspace, the terminal shows another: "ICE default IO error handler doing an exit(), pid=1170, errno=2"

At this point I don't know what to do. I tried reinstalling the system to no avail, I've searched internet archives and found similar trouble with the graphic login, but none of the potential hangups (font-loading, '--quiet', etc.) are relavent to my case. My guess is that there is one setting somehwre I have wrong setting the whole thing off.

Windows still works perfectly, and the Linux console seems to work perfectly as well.

Any suggestions?

Whoops, my hardware: P3 600 MHz, 192 MB RAM, ATI Rage 128 RL, 60 GB HD, now with about 30GB each for Win98SE and SuSE plus a 1GB swap.