I am new to Linux... as new as one can be.
Bought a book on Linux the Command Line.

Why, because I inherited a Linux Server as the previous administrator quit.
When I boot the system I get a command line prompt and log in and then returns to a simple command line prompt.

I saw a blue opensuse screen as it was booting but then starts as a command line prompt login.
After loggin I tried typing KDE and GNOME and get nothing but errors saying things can't display and syntax errors.

How do I start a GUI similar to windows that will let me navigate and view settings?

Tried typing Opensuse but of course that didn't work.
I feel totally stupid at this point.

Hello ClausW, welcome to LQ,

If X11 is installed you can start a Windowmanager with the startx command.

But be aware that normally a server doesn't have a GUI.

Markus

Thank You, That worked !!
think that will be a little easier than poking around with dir and ls
Let journey begin

Here http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz is a very valuable guide through the first steps with Linux and the commandline.

Markus

Don't feel stupid - lack of knowledge isn't stupidity. We all had to learn.

Been a while since I looked at OpenSuse but it had good doco when I did - try opensuse.org for a start - click on "Discover it".
For a server install, a deliberate decision must be made to *not* install a GUI. So you will need to install it yourself. OpenSuse uses (at least) two tools for installs - from the CLI, either "yast" or ""zypper" should work. The former would be better in your case. Once in a GUI environment, yast is the normal update means. See the wiki for doco.

I have been using OpenSUSE for a few years
( 11.1,11.2,11.3,11.4 and 12.1 -- soon to be 12.2 )

now SUSE on a server is normally SELS
"SUSE Enterprise Linux Server "
and it is NOT FREE currently SELS 11 service pack 3 is current
SELS and SELD ( d for desktop)
are LONG life


Then there is the FREE OpenSUSE
currently ONLY 12.1 and 12.2 are supported
see:
http://en.opensuse.org/Lifetime

ether way the NOT free SELS or the FREE opensuse registering at novell is a must
for updates for SELS
and for the forum for OpenSUSE
http://forums.opensuse.org/forum.php
the wiki page
http://en.opensuse.org/Main_Page