Starting GUI on Debian

[shammi07]

Hi
I have an Debian System on which GUI is not enabled.

How to Check that GUI can be started by some command or that has to be reinstalled.

[nujinini]

Hi
I have an Debian System on which GUI is not enabled.

How to Check that GUI can be started by some command or that has to be reinstalled.

Hi and welcome shammi07!

Personally, I am not knowledgeable on how to enable GUI in the Debian system. I'm very confident though that the gurus can be of better help regarding that.

Although I have also encountered the same problem some time ago when I used lenny.
I was able to solve it by making a fresh install making sure that my cable was connected to the internet during installation because I was just using an install cd then and the connection, I think, made sure that I get all the basic things I needed for my desktop to be as I want it to.

Now back to your problem

May I please know if this is a fresh install or was it already active before you got your hands on it. The reason I am asking is that you might want to make a backup of all important data before you start working on your machine.

What particular version do you have? And maybe you can also put some details regarding your machine too.

[Lakshmipathi]

In fedora machine "startx" command will start desktop environment. Check "startx" equivalent for debian machine. If you don't have such command on your machine.
Try

apt-get install kde-core kdm

If above didn't work - use kde-desktop

apt-get install kde-desktop

Should give you desktop environment.

HTH

[hazel]

Startx should work in any distro; it's a universal Linux command. If it fails, the next step is to find out why.

Try typing "X". You should get a blank grey graphics screen with a cursor. If you do, then the X server is running OK and the problem is probably that you don't have a desktop environment running. Did you install one? KDE is not the only option; you can install Gnome or lxde (my recommendation) or a simple window manager - but you must have something.

If the X server does not seem to be running, look at /var/log/Xorg.0.log (you can use the less command to page through it). This will show you where X failed. If you post the file here, someone will be able to tell you what you need to do next.

[devils casper]

If GUI has been installed then executing startx command should load it. You can edit /etc/inittab file to set it default.

[neddac]

Hi,

Try typing "X". You should get a blank grey graphics screen with a cursor. If you do, then the X server is running OK and the problem is probably that you don't have a desktop environment running. Did you install one?

I got the grey graphics screen. How do I exit out of it back to the command line?

[devils casper]

Hi and Welcome !

I got the grey graphics screen. How do I exit out of it back to the command line?

Press Alt+Ctrl+F1 - F6 to switch back to command line. Alt+Ctrl+F7 is for GUI.

[neddac]

Thanks for that!

That opened the command line mode however I can't enter any commands.

How can I logout etc?

(Sorry, I'm a complete novice)

[devils casper]

Which Linux distro/version are you using?

That opened the command line mode however I can't enter any commands.

Did you log in there? Are you able to execute any command?
Type exit to logout.
shutdown -r now is for reboot and shutdown -h now is for shutdown.

I would suggest you to check linuxcommand.org.

[neddac]

When I type a command and hit enter it just scrolls to the next line.

There is no cursor or # symbol

I can't try the reboot/shutdown commands during the day but I#m guessing they will have the same outcome.