I cant remember which desktop I installed, it must be Gnome though, cuz that's all I've ever used. Anyway, I can run Xconfigurator and get it all configured, but when I go to run Xwin (startx) it wont load. It just sits at the black and white screen with the X as a cursor. It doesnt freeze, the mouse still moves, but I've let it sit for quite awhile with it doing absolutely nothing. something I should change or do differently? I think it could be the computer, it is an old system, and it may not be fast enough, but what confuses me is that it will load Xwin when it tests the configuration and I can press "Yes I see the message" when it comes up. Maybe it just isnt loading everything? so when I try to load xwin it cant do it? I have no idea right now, any thoughts, advice, opinions, etc would be greatly appreciated. Even "buy a new computer" but that will be some time before I can do that.

I think just window manager is not loaded. Creata a file .xinitrc into user's home directory. Write startgnome inside. Use startx again.

The twm widow manager is exacly a you decribed ( black and white ). If you hold down the left mouse button, it gives you a popup menu so you can start an x-term or exit XFree86 ( you could kill XFree86 with cntrl-alt-backspace ).

Redhat has a nice program called switchdesk that lets you easily switch to gnome: "switchdesk gnome"

I must have not gotten it fully installed. I tried creating the .xinitrc file with startgnome in it, but when I run startx it gives me an error "/root/.xinitrc: startgnome: command not found"

I think I will go install it once again. This system I am using linux on is just a learning system, so I dont have anything useful on it yet.

Before reinstalling type start and then press tab to look for all start* files (startgnome, startkde etc). You'll know what you have and what was not installed.
Good luck.