Loging into Suse
 

I am completely new to Linux. I just installed SUSE 9.1 personal. When I boot to linux, I get a command type thing that says login. AFter I type something in I get password. The thing is, I never set any type of login during installation and dont know what to do there. I just want to be able to get to the desktop and start exploring Linux. Any suggestions?

In the login box on the left should be an entry ( possibly your name) try clicking on that.
Or bottom right it should say login or menu (I am doing this from memory) if you click on one of these it will give you a load of desktop options, select KDE then click on the entry as described above (possibly your name)

type in
root
this will get you to the root console (as long as you haven't passworded it yet)
# passwd
will allow you to change the root password
# useradd -m [name]
will add a new user to you home directory
# passwd [name]
will allow you to set a password for that user

You can log into your X session, as long as you have the correct software installed, using
$ startx
(do this as user (dollar sign at prompt), NOT as root)

oops, SuSE, forgot it was a graphical login. Ignore my last post unless you decide to uninstall SuSE and install slackware instead!
:)

Did you enter a user during the setup. If not, do you remember the root password?

If both of these answers are no, then you will need to boot up with the installation disk and select the rescue mode from the menu. If I remember correctly, you will need to enter 'root' to login, but don't need the password. After logging in, the first order of business is to change the root password.
Enter the command: passwd
and press enter. Then you will need to enter a new password twice.

Next, check if there is a directory under /home.
ls /home
The directory name is the same as the username. So if there is a directory named /home/gw2k for example, you can set a new password for the user.
passwd gw2k
<new password>
<new password>

After that, you should be able to reboot and log-in under the username.

If there isn't a directory under the /home directory, You could either run 'yast' from the console to add a new user, or reboot and get into the Administration Session option.

init 5 ( if you start out in the console mode )

Change from KDE or GNOME to the administration session.
Menu -> Session Type -> admin
Enter the user name 'root' and enter the root password.

Now you can create a new user in the YaST2 graphical interface.

Yeah, I kinda thought that it should be a graphical login but its not, its a command line similar to a dos prompt. Anyway, I can type in root at the prompt and get another command line. I have no idea what to type. I just want to get into the graphical desktop and use it. Any ideas?

I took far too long on my response. I see that there where several responces in the meantime.

If you know the root password and just want to change the default login method, you can make an edit to a file called /etc/inittab to make the changes. This file contains a line which indicates the default run level. Run level 3 is where you are at now. This level gives you a console log-in. With multi-users, and networking. You can run 'startx' after logging in to start a graphical session. Run level 5 will startup in a GUI session manager. From there you can select the user and enter the password.

You need to be root to edit the file.

The first uncommented line (probably on line 20) is a line that looks like this:
id:3:initdefault:

This is the default runlevel. Since you want to log into a gui, change the 3 to a 5.

id:5:initdefault:

This all presupposes that your graphic system is installed and configured. Before doing this you might want to enter 'init 5' as root. Then log in normally to verify it will work this way after changing your default run level to 5.

It's important that you create at least one user account. Don't make a habit of logging into X as root.