1st time Linux user having problems.. please help

[Delphi7888]

hi.. i am trying linux for the first time (other than messing about with Knoppix a few times) I have installed Mandriva as a dual boot with my XP OS. however after installing etc.. when it loads up into linux i am presented with what looks like a type of dos screen.. where i can type in commands.. i have tried using typical dos commands to find they dont work >_< and have used the 'help' command to find a list of different commands. how do i get it to load into an actual OS looking Interface.

Thanks in advance

New Linux user.

[daark.child]

You are logged into a command line interface (CLI). If you want to login to a GUI interface, login to the CLI as a normal user and enter the command "startx" (without quotes). That should start a GUI for you, but if that does not happen, post back any error messages.

If a GUI is successfully started, then do Menu -> Run Command and enter the command "kdesu kwrite" (again without quotes). You will be prompted for roots password. Once kwrite opens, look for a file called /etc/inittab and change

id:3:initdefault:

to

id:5:initdefault:

This will make sure that the GUI automatically starts up when you boot up your computer.

[Delphi7888]

ok i did as mentioned above and it came up with the following:

'Execve failed for /etc/X11/X (errno 2)

giving up
xinit: connection refused (errno 111)
unable to connect to XServer
xinit: no such process (errno 3)
server error

[daark.child]

There seems to be a problem with your X server. If this is a fresh installation, I suggest you reinstall.

[Delphi7888]

i've tried re-installing to no prevail.. im gonna uninstall Linux and wait till i get a book to read up on it. in the meantime how do you get rid of the linux bootloader at the beggining as when my computer boots up it automatically goes into a linux that isnt there anymore (i formatted the partition)

Thanks In advance

[fingal]

Hi - My approach would have been a bit different (and no disrespect to daark.child). DOS commands won't work on a Linux command line (unless you set it up that way, but that's another thread).

You could have tried typing startkde or startx at the command prompt. Probably when you installed Mandriva you didn't specify that it should boot to a GUI by default. That option is there during a standard installation.

Once inside a GUI you can go to the Mandriva Control Centre (MCC) which is basically 'Configure my Computer' from the toolbar which - as a Windows user - you're familiar with. There you can tell the OS to boot into a GUI by default.

That's always worked for me, but I haven't installed from scratch for a long time, and I've never dual booted with Windows.

A little more: once you're used to using a Linux GUI, there are many different desktop environments to choose from: not just KDE.

Don't be worried about trying Mandriva again, as sooner or later you'll end up with a good system.

[daark.child]

In my initial post, I suggested to run startx and the error message he got made me conclude that the problem is nothing to do with starting in runlevel 3 but a problem with X itself (specifically xinit).

[Seren]

i've tried re-installing to no prevail.. im gonna uninstall Linux and wait till i get a book to read up on it.

If you tried to install Mandriva 2007.1 Spring, the problem may be due to bad stuff in that version of Mandriva. I tried to upgrade to 2007.1 but the install hosed on me, worse than what happened to you, and I had to reinstall 2007.0.

Since Mandriva isn't installing correctly on your hardware, download and install another distribution instead, Ubuntu or Mepis for instance. With Linux you can always try different distributions to see what works best on your system.

The book is still a good idea, btw.

in the meantime how do you get rid of the linux bootloader at the beggining as when my computer boots up it automatically goes into a linux that isnt there anymore (i formatted the partition)

Thanks In advance

Booting to the Windows install CD and choosing one of the repair (rather than install) options should allow to you fix the Master Boot Record, where Mandriva's boot loader probably is now.