I just finished an installation of Debian 5.0 Lenny. I am using a Toshiba Satellite 505D-s5965 Laptop with Win7 as a dual boot. AMD Dual core processor. I had a few problems with the partitioning stage of the install because i didn't want to delete Windows and the "Use Entire Disk" option was daunting. After some lucky keystrokes i got it to install, however the OS is not what i expected, instead of a desktop and icons and such i only have a DOS like (Solid black background with white text, that it!) command line. What the @!#$ did i do wrong. How do i un-do it and just in case I am not ready for Linux, how do i uninstall it!

Secondary Issues: I pre-formatted the HD and used to see the partition in windows but it has since disappeared. When i was using Ubuntu (Wubi Install is so much nicer) i could still see the partition.
I could not set up the DCHP network during Debian install, could this be an issue with the Desktop missing?
I installed Debian on a 25 GB partition with the ext3 system option checked. It was the only one that would let me progress with the install. I could really use some help here.

I thought i was ready to "graduate" from Ubuntu but maybe i was sorely mistaken.

This is the linux console.

Did not install or configure X.

Reformat the partition.

Is this a windows question?

Yes, if you used the netinstall CD, then you probably needed network to download X. Can you tell us what iso you used for the install, and also what your network device is.

Please answer the questions above and we can proceed from there.

Sounds like a simple issue with your network device not being supported by the default installer. You may need a binary blob to get it to work.

Evo2.

Welcome to LQ! You have a lot of questions there, so let me try to answer a few of them:

1. Did you install the graphical user interface packages when you installed Debian? If not, you'll need to do so before you get a GUI. You should be able to type "aptitude install kde" (no quotes) in a terminal while logged in as root and that will install the KDE desktop (it should bring in the X server which provides basic GUI functions on Linux systems). Once it's installed, you might need to type "startx" (no quotes) to get it up and running. You might try running startx right now just to see if it's installed. If you get an error message, you can post it here.

2. Windows generally can't read Linux partitions, so it's no surprise that your Windows system can't see them. Your Linux system should be able to see the Windows partition, however.

3. If you want to completely wipe out Linux, delete the Linux partitions, use something like gparted to resize the Windows partition to fill the while disk (you will probably need to defrag it first), and then boot off your rescue CD and re-install the Windows boot loader (not sure how to do this with Win7 as the procedure is different than XP I'm told). Note, as soon as you remove the Linux partitions, the GRUB bootloader will no longer work automatically (assuming you installed GRUB on the MBR) so make SURE you have your Windows rescue CD handy. As always when modifying disk partitions, there's a chance that things can go catastrophically wrong. Make SURE you have back-ups of all your valuable data, either on another machine or on a CD/DVD/external hard drive.

Edit: forgot to mention you'll need your network working before you can use aptitude. As evo2 suggests, please tell us what kind of network device you're using. If you're using wireless, try plugging into a wired connection and make sure you can get network access.

Thank you both Very Much. the iso file name is
debian-503-AMD64-neinst.iso
my network device is a 2wire 2700HG-B
I am rebooting now to run the "aptitude install kde" command in the Linux Console with a wired connection to my 2wire. I will post results ASAP.

I will do more research next time. Until you mentioned it evo2 and btmiller, i had not yet heard of X.

Ok, that combined with no network explains why X was not installed.

Actually in this context we mean the device in your computer.

Excellent to hear you have wired network too. Using that you should be able to set up X fairly easily, then we can set about getting your wireless working.

Just installing the kde package may not be enough. If that doesn't work, please try running the command "tasksel" and then selecting the desktop environment option (although this may give you gnome not kde...).

Cheers,

Evo2.

Since my last post i have done the following:

opened the console and tried "aptitude install kde" command with no joy. the only message i understood was " no program, package, or file with "kde" found"
Erased the partition and reinstalled with wired connection with no joy. The installer still could not configure the DCHP network so i used the manual setting and input my Ip, Mask, e.c.t. I was not given an error message nor was i given a confirmation of the success of a network connection. during install the system was unable to access any of the selected apt repository mirrors. Apparently no network connection.


Thank you both for the assistance but i think that i am just not educated enough to use debian yet. if i am having this much trouble, and there are this many gaps in my knowledge of the installation process, using the system is more than i can do right now. Thank you both again.

This will remain the forum that i use and recommend for all my linux issues.