I need help with finishing my Mandrake 9.2 install. I purchased the CDs ford a nice clean install, and everything was going well, even the automatic partitioning of Windows 98SE.

My problem started when the install was totally finished and asked for a reboot. When the machine was booting up in Linux, I did NOT get the nice login window that my manual said would be there. I just got a black screen with a login promt and after that, a password promt.

I sucessufly logged in, but the magical "First Time Wizard" didn't start. The screen just stayed at the command promt.

I tried (unsuccessfully) to jump start the bugger by typing "GUI", "Graphical User Interface", and "First Time Wizard", but nothing worked.

Everything seemed to be going well and I was surprised that the system hung up there.

Did I do something wrong???
Is there a quick & easy fix???

Thank you in advance for all your help and wisdom.

Are you at the command prompt?
Noah

I take it from your post that you didn't manage to enter the GUI. Type "startx", tat will start up the graphical server.
From there you can enable graphical login with mcc.

I tried the "startx" at the command promt and this is what I got:

Execue failed for /etc/X11/X (errno 13) giving up.

Xinit: no such file or directory (errno 2): unable to connect to X server.

Xinit: no such process (errno 3): server error.

So, what does all of that mean? Do I have missing files?

Prolly a bad install. I think your best bet would be to just reinstall. I'm sure it will save you a lot of hassle.

Can I just re-install over the current one or do I have to un-install everything first?

Don't re-install yet, you need to run "xf86config" to configure X11, which is your graphical enviornment.
Noah

To answer your question, yes, you can just install over what's there but, you need to format it. The option for that is available in the installer, if you remember.

I always had to configure X for it to work on my Computer. Slackware does not do it in the install. You have to configure it yourself afterwards.
Noah

Thanks for all the tips. I will try the "xf86config" when I go home for lunch today. Hopefully, that will jump start the finalization and I won't have to re-install everything.

I'll let you know how it works.

OKAY, I ran the "xf86config" and then the "startx" and got all of the same error messages as listed in the first post.

I think that I will have to re-install the whole thing tonight. What is involved in "format it" part of the re-innstall? I followed all the instructions (or so I thought) the first time.

When you came to the partitioning part of the install, which option did you choose? Next time you'll have to select manual partitioning option, and mount the partitions manually.
Yoyu'll have to format the partitions that the installer created.
Are you new to Linux and it's filesytem structure?

Yes, I am brand new to Linux. I re-installed everything and now the system boots up into the GUI. I had a very busy week-end and didn't have any time to see if my modem and sound card, ETC work yet.

But at least I'm into the system now.

THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR HELP GUYS!

Alrughty, kewl