If it is a "very new" machine then I want to know why it has SLED 10 SP1 on it and not SLED 10 SP2. SP2 has been out since sometime in May or June and SP1 is either already end of life and not supported by Novell or is very, very close to being so. Anyway...
It sounds like your machine is booting to run level 3, which is multiuser text mode, when you expect run level 5, which gives you the graphical login screen. When you first log in run the command
Code:
$ grep initdefault /etc/inittab
You should get back a line which looks like
If the number is a 3 then your system is behaving as expected. If you want it go boot to run level 5 then change the 3 to a 5. If it says 5 already then I don't know what's happening.