easiest to dual boot with Vista and SATA

[Cynical Angels]

well root worked, but it puts me in a text mode, and I'm not sure how to get into the graphical mode.

[devils casper]

Execute adduser command and create a new user. Logout and login using new user account. Execute startx command and post error message here, if any.

[Cynical Angels]

ok... I was able to add users... but it won't let me log into any of them... even if I set a password. I've tried it with a number accounts, but won't let me set a password...

I was however able to startx in root. I was hoping to find a user utility in there, but no avail. is there a way to set the user account. I looked all over, not having much luck

[devils casper]

What error message does it throw while logging in as regular user?

[Cynical Angels]

it just says "incorrect password"...
logging on with anything other than root does this
I tried making several accounts... even an account with test
am I doing this right... this is how I added it:

adduser test -p test

[devils casper]

Log in as root and execute this

ls -l /home

Post output here.

[Cynical Angels]

there are 4 entries.... and they look like this:
drwx------ 4 mark mark 4096 2007-12-31 20:47 mark (in blue)
the other 3 look exactly like this.

[devils casper]

Are you creating same UserID? Try different User ID.
Execute this

adduser angels

Assign it password and try to login as angels.

[Cynical Angels]

how do I assign the password for the account?

[devils casper]

When you execute adduser command, it will ask for User details including password.
Nothing will appear on screen while typing password, not even ******.