hello,
last nite, i was trying to install linux on my old windows 95 comp. i decided to use mandrake 10 because it seemed to suit my purposes best.
i got it installed without too much trouble

now however, when i turn the computer, it only starts the text based user interface (i dont really know wat its called, ive only had about 2 hours of experience with linux). after doing some searching, i found that i should be able to start either KDE or GNOME by typing "startx". i did this, but this just gives a very long message. the 3 errors are

"(EE) NV(0): Virtual size (1280x1024) (pitch 1280) exceeds virtual memory"

"(EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration.
Fatal Server error:
no screens found"

"X10: fatal IO error 104 (Connection reset by peer) on X server ": 0.0"
after 0 requests (0 known processed) with 0 events remaining"

it sounds to me like its saying my comp has too little memory, and a monitor that isnt supported, which is entirely possible, b/c the comp im using is an old windows 95 comp from 1997.

My questions are:
-is there anything i can do currently to get the GUI running?
-if not, is there another distribution or version of linux that i can use instead?

Hello!
What graphic card and monitor do you have?
And add some general data about your machine! (Cpu, RAM, etc)

It appears that you have chosen a screen 1280x1024 that is beyond the capabilities of your video card. Thats the first error. the second is indicating that X has failed to find any other usable screens. The last error is X stopping because of the previous errors.

You may try running "XFdrake" from the console(without the quotes) and letting the machine auto detect everything. Just don't "test". Testing usually causes X to fail. When you have everything configured just "quit". Then type in "startx" and see if X will start the gui.

If that doesn't work we will need more detail about your system.