Just installed Linux, need advice on what to do next...
 

Hi, im very new to Linux. I recently installed Gentoo Linux on my system, it works fine. But I want to have a graphical user interface with windows. The problem is i don't know where to start.
What Linux GUI software are out there?
What are the best one?
what ones can i install with ease?
where do i get them from?
and How do i install them on my system?

Also if i need to download them from the net, how do i web browse on linux?

Another problem I have, is that in the manual for gentoo. It provides instructions for installing a portage package from CD. I havent got that CD, do I need portage? Is it essential?

I would be eternally grateful if anyone can help me with any of these matters. Thanks in advanced.

The two big names out there are Gnome and KDE. Unfortunatly I'm no too familliar with Gentoo (I'm more of a Slackware person myself :) ), so I'm not sure which ones are packaged with it, but generally if at the console you type:

You will get a list of "window managers" (take note of that phrase, in fact, Google it) that are insalled on your system.

I personally prefer WindowMaker but that's just my wierdness.

Hope this helps a bit.

And as a follow up (thought I had to cut-and-run there but turned out to be a false alarm), if you're coming straight from a ~ purely Windows background and want a good bit of visual familiarity, here is fvwm95 which looks (quite unnearvingly) like Win95 but with a few extra Linux GUI goodness, like the ever popular multiple desktops.

Now, coming from experience that I really should pass on to you, do yourself a huge favour and at least skim over the docs for each window manager that you're interested in trying out. It'll help you in ways you'd never imagine. :)

Yes you MUST have portage installed, and it probably already is.
try this command
emerge --sync
no errors, but 5 minutes worth of scrolling text? then all is good.

MY RECCOMENDATIONS:
Edit your /etc/make.conf file, and make sure java, alsa, and oss are listed in the USE=" " line.

as root:
Takes a while, about an hour on an Athalon 2200XP.

When it's finished,
set up your xorg file as described here:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/xorg-config.xml
(emerge lynx if you wanna view the pages while running gentoo)

Fire up X and run dillo from one of the opened terminal windows, then surf here and pick a window manager:
http://packages.gentoo.org/packages/?category=x11-wm

You'll then have a decent GUI and graphical webbrowser to research the pro's and con's of KDE, Gnome, XFCE4 etc.

Xorg
 

Hi i've tried:

emerge -v xorg-x11

it starts emerging it for about an hour and a bit, but then i get the following:

rm -f pswrap
i686-pc-linux-gnu-gcc -o pswrap -march=athlon-xp -pipe -O3 -fno-strict-aliasing -ansi -pedantic -Wno-return-type -w -L../../exports/lib main.o pswparser.o lexer.o pswdict.o pswfile.o systemnames.o psw.o pswstring.o pswsemantics.o -lfl -Wl,-rpath-link,../../exports/lib
/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i686-pc-linux-gnu/3.3.5-20050130/../../../../i686-pc-linux-gnu/bin/ld: cannot find -lfl
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make[4]: *** [pswrap] Error 1
make[4]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/xorg-x11-6.8.2-r1/work/xc/config/pswrap'
make[3]: *** [../../config/pswrap/pswrap] Error 2
make[3]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/xorg-x11-6.8.2-r1/work/xc/lib/dps'
make[2]: *** [includes] Error 2
make[2]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/xorg-x11-6.8.2-r1/work/xc/lib'
make[1]: *** [includes] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/xorg-x11-6.8.2-r1/work/xc'
make: *** [World] Error 2

!!! ERROR: x11-base/xorg-x11-6.8.2-r1 failed.
!!! Function build, Line 956, Exitcode 2
!!! make World failed
!!! If you need support, post the topmost build error, NOT this status message.

I have tried emerging serveral times but still the same, I cant understand whats wrong here?

If you are using Gentoo then you already have GNOME, a very populat windows manager. Play with it for some time and in the meanwhile read about KDE and GNOME, so that you can after some time install the latest versions of either.

Cheers.

http://www.uselinuxathome.com/ENgui.htm

http://www.kde.org/ Read their docs, they are excellent
http://www.kde.org/documentation/

http://www.gnome.org/ is where you can get gnome

Not sure why, but flex apparently isn't installed on your system. Fix it with:
Then retry emerging xorg.

BTW - Gnome is not installed by default in Gentoo, I'm not sure where the other poster got that idea from.

now when I After about the same sort of time i know get this error:

../../exports/lib/libXfont.so: undefined reference to `FT_Get_PS_Font_Info'
../../exports/lib/libXfont.so: undefined reference to `FT_Stream_Seek'
../../exports/lib/libXfont.so: undefined reference to `FT_Has_PS_Glyph_Names'
../../exports/lib/libXfont.so: undefined reference to `FT_Get_BDF_Charset_ID'
../../exports/lib/libXfont.so: undefined reference to `FT_Get_X11_Font_Format'
../../exports/lib/libXfont.so: undefined reference to `FT_Get_Name_Index'
../../exports/lib/libXfont.so: undefined reference to `FT_Activate_Size'
../../exports/lib/libXfont.so: undefined reference to `FT_Get_Postscript_Name'
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make[4]: *** [bdftopcf] Error 1
make[4]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/xorg-x11-6.8.2-r1/work/xc/programs/
bdftopcf'
make[3]: *** [all] Error 2
make[3]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/xorg-x11-6.8.2-r1/work/xc/programs'
make[2]: *** [all] Error 2
make[2]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/xorg-x11-6.8.2-r1/work/xc'
make[1]: *** [World] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/xorg-x11-6.8.2-r1/work/xc'
make: *** [World] Error 2

!!! ERROR: x11-base/xorg-x11-6.8.2-r1 failed.
!!! Function build, Line 956, Exitcode 2
!!! make World failed
!!! If you need support, post the topmost build error, NOT this status message.


Can somebody please tell me whats going on? Please???

this one is a bit more puzzling.
Post your /etc/make.conf
Are you sure you have the correct arch defined?
Did you do a stage 1, 2 or 3 install?
Have you been able to successfully emerge anything?

I got so fedup, I decided to delete gentoo, reinstall it now with the correct processor, emerged -sync, and the xorg-x11, and it worked fine! Yipee! now I am gonna look for a desktop environment, prob kde.

Thanks for your help gbhil, and everyone else.