I have never used linux before in my life, buy i want to learn how

I recently installed Slackware on my old pc because it was the only version of linux it could handle.

I got as far as to login, and i'm stuck at:What do I do from here? How do I start up the interface I see in all the screenshots of linux?

thanks for all your help

dbgtrulz

Have you triedCheers,

mj

Congrats - getting to the command prompt is a successful install. The GUI is gravy. X should work out of the box with startx like mjrich says but, if not, try xf86config (if you're using Slack before 10) or xorgconfig (if you're using 10). And xwmconfig if you want to switch GUIs. Read the Slackware book (a little out of date, but helpful) and google and read the man pages and post up questions here if you still have problems.

Welcome to Linux and LQ.

If everything got set up correctly, then you should be able to start up the X server by typing:

startx

To get things working under linux, you mostly have to at least partially understand what's going on under the hood to set things up correctly. I've been at it for awhile and have quite a few things in my trick bag, but there are still a few things playing tricks on me.

One good thing to know about linux, and most importantly slackware, is that everything can be configured using a text editor. You can configure or reconfigure everything on your system. /etc is where most of these configuration files are normally situated. Another important thing to know is that the console is hard to avoid. You'll come to discover that you can type in poweful commands very compactly whereas you could not achieve the same results easily, or at all, using the graphical interface.

type in:

ls

and you should see folder descriptions flow in your console.
You can browse through the folders using the command:

cd <name of the folder you want to go to> ( don't use the < > when you write in the name)

using:

cd /

will take you to the root of the system ( dont mix this up with root user which is a different concept )
The root ( / ) is where the whole of your linux system stands, whereas the root user is the master user of the system.

You're home directory should be under /root right now since you probably don't have any users other than root defined. Once you have users defined, it is good practice to define their home directory under /home/<name of the new user you defined>.

To get more information about a command, type in:

man < the name of the command you want to get information about >

This will bring you to the man pages, which will help you get documented about how to use the command you specified.

I'm sorry if i'm going a little fast but there is an awful lot for you to learn and I could write for hours. I suggest you get a good book on linux commands to get a good start. There are also some tutorials on the net you can look into to get a better grasp of a little bit of everything.

You are in for alot of reading on the net and alot of figuring things out by trial and error.

Hope you'll have alot of fun!

Good luck

Regards
aXoneX

You may want to add a user account for your use with adduser. That way, if you mess any of the settings up, you can just recreate the user without having to reinstall everything.



EDIT: oh, and to set it so that it starts the GUI automatically, do the following:
1: #pico /etc/inittab
2: search for a line that says id:3:initdefault: It should be right up near the top.
3: change that 3 to a 4, so it says id:4:initdefault:
4: Type CTRL-X, Y, and enter to save it without changing the name.
5: Reboot, and you're golden.

... before you make that change, you should make sure that X is working properly in the first place by typing startx. If it works, then you're golden. If not, then don't make the change until it's working. It can be a bit of a hog to set up properly in the first place, but once you've got it working, you'll wonder how you ever did without.

I aso have the coomon problem, it means that Server x is not start succesully, so you just restart the server x.

the command :
startx

Thanks for all your help. But I have more questions:

OK, i'm in GNUstep, but what do i do from here? I have configured the options in the third box down on the right, but now what?

Also, when I type ls, all I get is:

Hey.

You might want to take a look at these sites:

http://shilo.is-a-geek.com/slack/
http://insyte.uni.cc/

They helped me getting started. As for GNUstep, I don't know.

I see. Thanks again. I got it to work

EDIT: Can you tel me where to find a Good GUI? None of the one I am useing seem like the ones in the screenshots. Thanks

before you startx run xwmconfig and pick another one to try. then startx again.

The ones you see in the screenshots are usually KDE, Gnome, sometimes Enlightenment, maybe Fluxbox - all but E come with Slack. However, the screenshots usually show heavily customized GUIs that don't look much like the defaults. (Linux apps are usually extremely configurable.)

I use Ice and Pek and neither of those come with Slack - if you see something you like, find out what it is from the site where you see it, then go download it if it's not already included with Slack. Be sure to read the man pages or builtin help with your GUI to see how to customize it how you like.

Which screenshots are you talking about? If you give a link, one of us can probably tell you exactly which window manager they're using for it.

Something that looks like this:
http://download.freshmeat.net/screenshots/35940.png
or this:
http://download.freshmeat.net/screenshots/36497.png

I really dont care which one it is exactally, as long as it looks and works along the basic lines of the top two.

If I really has to choose features, I would want low system requirements, because I am useing an old computer, but easy to use, because I'm new to linux.

THose are all kde. you can use xwmconfig and try it, but kde is not lightweight

I think I like this IceWM. I have downloaded the .tar.gz archive, but how do I install it onto my linux computer form this pc. My laptop cannot go online yet. Should I use a USB key?

thanks in advance