LinuxQuestions.org - Can't get into GUI

Ok.
I made a thread in linux software about this

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=277320

but im not sure if it should be in the "software" or "newbie" forum so im putting one in both.

I recently (just before christmas) switched to linux. I origionaly decided on debian because it was suposed to have a lot of options avalable. when i tried to install it everything worked mostly smooth untill i tried to boot the computer. when i did i could log in and type "xinit, startx, kdeinit..." and it would all give me the same error

aborting: $DISPLAY not set

I have virtualy no patience so i gave up and chose Mandrake instead because it too had a lot of options, easy install system, package management and an all around good "newb interface".

I've had a bunch of problems with it but could fix almost all of them. It had been runing great for about 5 weeks with almost no problems. I was playing a game one morning, it was almost time to go to school, so shut down my computer, put it in my bag and went to class. i then turned it back on in first hour and it did what debian did with the $DISPLAY error.

I have stuff on my hard drive now so i cant just pack upand start over again so easily.

I made a post on this site and someone suggested that i type

(X :0 &) && export DISPLAY="0:0" && sleep 5 && (kdeinit)

so i did... and i got this

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[root@192 root]# (X :0 &) && export DISPLAY="0:0" && sleep 5 && (kdeinit)
execve failed for /etc/X11/X (errno 2)
[root@192 root]# Link points to "/tmp/ksocket-root"
QPixmap: Cannot create a QPixmap when no GUI is being used
QPixmap: Cannot create a QPixmap when no GUI is being used
Link points to "/tmp/kde-root"
kded: cannot connect to X server 0:0
DCOP aborting call from 'anonymous-4646' to 'kded'
kded: ERROR: Communication problem with kded, it probably crashed.
kdeinit : Can't connect to the X Server.
kdeinit: Might not terminate at end of session.

[root@192 root]#

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I also had an idea of installing Mandrake on another partition and copying the files I need to the old one. However, I wouldn't know how to go about doing that or which files to copy.

I'm running Mandrake 10.1 on an Averatec 3150H laptop. I have KDE, Gnome, and ICEwm installed.