can't start x desktop.
 

Okay, I installed Mandrivia, it installed perfectly the first time, however I am confronted by a problem. I boot Mandrivia and it takes me to a black screen where it asks me to login, so I login as root. I try "startx" and I am confronted with an error "Cannot connect to server, connection reset by peer" when my system shouldn't even be attempting to connect to a server, so I try loading kde, and again I meet the same error with annoyance.

My friend told me to change my hostname, however I don't know how I would go about doing that, and if that would actually solve the problem.

(I hope this is an easy fix.)

Another piece of information that might be helpful: During instalation I was never requested to declare a host name. I am not sure if that might be the problem.

X is called a server, Your machine was not trying to connect to a "SERVER", just the gui.
You probably need to configure xorg or X11, depending on what mandriva uses, its the file that configures your hardware, Monitor, graphics card, mouse...ETC.. Changing hostname wont do anything that I am aware of regarding X.

In the console goto /etc/X11 and see if there is a file called xorg.conf, if so try to run xorgconfig then go from there........

Thanks, I'll try that.