Hey, just installed debian and everything SEEMS to be fine. But unlike Red Hat, which I used earlier, I do not boot right into the OS. I get a user name and password prompt, I enter the correct info, and then it brings me to another prompt. I am assuming that I have to type something in to boot to the Linux Image, however I dont know the command and I need guidance because I am a dumb newbie. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

startx

Hmm ... I assume, that you are used to some sort of GUI. If that's it, try using:
startx

or:
xinit

at the prompt and it will put you in your GUI.

What I think you are asking for is how to get the Window managers up and running.

This depends whether you are stuck at the boot loader or if Debian boots but you don't get a graphical interface to work with.

If Debian boot alright you should see lots of lines telling you what services that start. If this is the case there is nothing wrong with Debian (otherwise look further down), what you see actually is the OS ( I know it doesn't look much ). What you have to do is log in as super user (root) and then check
Near the top there should be a line similar to
That line tells Linux what runlevel to start in i.e Single user, Multi User, X11.

If there is a '3' instead of the '5' that means you are starting in non graphical multiuser mode. Change that to a '5' and reboot.

If you have a '5' in the line you have some trouble with your X-window system. Log in as a normal user and type 'startx', 'xstart', 'xinit' that is different on every distro, check if you get any errors that might help you.

if you don't boot into the os you have problem with your boot loader, grub or LILO. Check what debian uses and google for it.

It uses LILO. I tried startx, xinit, and that idea you gave me Gautama, and none of them worked. When I tried startx and xinit it said it couldn't initialize X server... whatever that means..

When I tried /etc/inittab it said permission was denied even when I was logged into root...

How did you install Debian? WHat version is it? Did you do a basic install only? Can you go to a /etc/X11 directory?
If not you may not have installed X-windows at all

is a file you have to open it with a text editor. emacs, vi , nano, pico .... any of the above will do.

edit:
I wrote a crash course on emacs and vi in a previous thread
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...threadid=68347
/edit

if you just want to look at it use 'less' or 'more', you can't edit files just look at them.

And check if you can do as softgun suggested

Well When I tried getting into the /bin/X11/ location it didn't allow me to get there - the farthest I could get was the /bin/ folder..

However, when I used /etc/X11/, I was able to get into the folder and saw the X-Window Manager and three other files that contained something to do with X. What does this mean?

Actually, this is only true for MOST distros, but that's because they all make the same (IMO, stupid) distinctions. Debian does not customize runlevels for you. Runlevels 2-5 are all exactly the same unless you do something special to one of them. So, the default runlevel is actually 2, and changing it to 5 won't change anything unless you set up runlevel 5 to be special.

If you want it to use a graphical login, you have to install a graphical login manager. That's it. It'll automatically set it up to start on boot.