I just installed Ubuntu 8.10 server edition in the hopes it will be possible to get samba working, something that has been more miss than hit for me with the desktop edition.

Anyway, I know that the server edition does not automatically start up a display manager and have not had any success with typing in things like "startx" or "gdm". These normally hand me back error messages indicating that config files are not present and therefore that the app is not installed.

Could someone tell me the steps that I have to take to get Gnome running? My exerience at the command line is pretty limited.

Thanks for your help.

AFAIK you'll need to install GNOME first. Run sudo aptitude search gnome | less to get a sruvey of available packages. You could go for a meta-package or install only the components that you need.

JUst run from terminal sudo aptitude install ubuntu-desktop.
See this:
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/gnome
You could also just run sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop if you are more comfortable with that. In fact, it is best to be consistent. That is, either use apt-get consistently or aptitude consistently. Don't mix them haphazardly, because they handle dependencies a little differently.

Thanks for the help. That did it.