2.6.21.5-smp (tty1) no GUI slackware 12
 

hi I am having some trouble, I installed slackware 12 but when I start it up I don't get a GUI I just get a console session that says darkstar login then I log in as root with my password but just get a command line. Help I really want to know how to get the KDE desktop.

You need to know a bit about your hardware, specifically your graphics card and monitor.

For your monitor, find out its horizontal and vertical sync ranges, and the resolutions it supports.
All of this should be in your monitor's user guide or find it online for your specific monitor.

Then find out if your graphics card is supported by xorg, and which driver to use.
Visit http://www.x.org/wiki/ and/or search for xorg and your card.

Note that some ATI and nVidia cards have proprietary drivers available for Linux, if you want 3D acceleration for those cards you may wish to use those drivers. x.org has links to them, if you wish. The proprietary drivers may patch the kernel, review the requirements and installation instructions for more detail.

As a generic fallback, you can always use the VESA driver, it will work with virtually any card, though you may not get the best performance or resolutions that you will with other drivers.

Once all of that is done, type xorgconfig on the command line.

Follow all of the instructions in the menus that appear, entering the information as it appears.

When all of that is done, and you have told xorgconfig to write a new xorg.conf, then change directory to /etc/X11/xinit
Copy xinitrc.kde to xinitrc

Then type startx and you should be off and running.

If all of that is successful, you may wish to start KDE when you start Slackware.
Do that by editing /etc/inittab and changing the default run level to from 3 to 4.
Then entry should look like this: id:4:initdefault:
Do that only after you're happy with all of the X configuration settings.

Search this forum for more details about editing your xinitrc and xorg.conf files.

If that's the first time you start your Slackware system after installation, then you need to edit /etc/inittab as follow :
Find the line :
id:3:initdefault:

And edit to:
id:4:initdefault:

The default init mode of Slackware is text mode, not graphic mode.

Please do not change that file /etc/inittab before you have ensured that your X will actually start!

Slackware ships with a X server configuration by default which should support nearly every available video card (using the VESA driver), so running the "startx" command right after logging in for the very first usually works.
By collecting the specs for your video card and monitor, and running the "xorgconfig" command, you can tune your X configuration to use a driver that is specifically written for your video card, which will make X run much smoother and faster.

Eric

Personally, I've had very good luck with 'xorgsetup' rather than 'xorgconfig'.

xorgsetup TRIES to automatically recognize your video card and monitor (Does a great job with my Nvidia card and HP monitor.)

Just putting out there that for a newbie, xorgsetup may be easier.