starting Gnome or Kde

[rn4life]

I am new to linux, I have followed and installed Linux about 7 times and after installation i cannot get linux to boot up then go into the desktop enviroment mode. I have installed linux as the sole operating system. when i bootup it asks me to log in which i have done, it the just says

[username@localhost root]#

i then type "startX" and this happens

x:auth: creating new authority file /home/root/.Xauthority
x:auth: creating new authority file /home/root/.Xauthority

execue failed for etc/x11/x (errno2)
giving up
xinit: No such file or directory (errno 2): unable to connect to X server
xinit: no such process (errno3): server error.

I dont know what to ype or how to fix this can someone who knows please tell me.

[Dolda2000]

Have you really copied the text just as it says? I'm pretty sure that it's supposed to be /etc/X11/X (note, uppercase 'X's and leading '/'). If not, it could explain a whole lot.
Check if /etc/X11/X exists.
Could you try running 'telinit 5' instead of 'startx'?
What distribution is this?

[rn4life]

this is redhat 7.2 and sorry the text does have capital X's

[rn4life]

i typed in /etc/X11/X and it says that no such file or directory exists

[Dolda2000]

Are you able to execute 'telinit 5"?
Could you also check for the file /usr/X11R6/bin/XFree86?

[Keebler]

Did you ever find a resolution to this? I'm getting the exact error message and I just did apt-get install gnome today.

Debian latest stable...