openSUSE 10.2 will not start KDE

[Radiation]

Hello all,
I am very new to linux. I have dual booted many versions of the os. But I have never really learned alot about it. I'm ready now. I installed OpenSUSE 10.2 Alpha 5 on my system. It is dual-booting with windows xp pro using GRUB. I have installed it 4 times now trying to correct this problem. The first time I installed it, it worked fine. The GUI came up and I looked around. But when I went to boot back into windows I got, autochk not found-stopping autochk... OK I got by all that, but had to do a fresh install of both OS's. Now that I have installed SUSE again. When I boot up, it does not start KDE. It just gives me a login. I can login and use commands to move throughout the filesystem, but cannot figure out how to get into KDE. I tried startx, startkde. Both commands make a bunch of text come up. But it just comes back to the command prompt after that. I've searched google for everything I can think of to get it work and can't find anything. So I came here.

Here is what I would like the end result to be.
Boot SUSE and it goes straight to KDE like windows goes straight to explorer.
and keep it that way!

I'm very sorry to sound so stupid, but i'm trying to learn this.

Thank you very much for any help!

Regards,

[eraker]

I tried startx, startkde. Both commands make a bunch of text come up. But it just comes back to the command prompt after that. I've searched google for everything I can think of to get it work and can't find anything. So I came here

In order to be able to help, we'll have to know what error messages came up when you tried startx. It may be that you installed quickly and didn't install a gui (I don't even know if SuSE will let you do this; will SuSE let you do this?) or there could be a problem configuring X, or there could be some other issue.

[Radiation]

eraker,
I did install the GUI. All of kde's dependencies were there as well. I'll have to reboot and write down the error. Will get back to you soon. Thanks again!

[bigtomrodney]

I don't like to be a pessimist about this - but you are installing the alpha 5 release which is for testing purposes only. If you encounter a problem like this you should report it back to the guys at openSUSE so it can be attended to and fixed for the next alpha/beta release. If you want something more stable try running SUSE 10.1.

[Radiation]

I understand it is an alpha release. But what I can't figure out is it worked fine the first install. The only reason why I had to format was because I used partition magic to create the linux partitions. By doing that I choose to set those partitions active so that when I rebooted I could install linux. Which I did. after installation, I booted into linux just fine. Played with the new GUI for a bit, and then decided to return to windows to play a game. Went to boot into windows, and got the autochk error I talked about before. So I had to format the drive to correct that. Then I did a fixmbr to get rid of grub and then tried installing linux again. Installed properly, but now will not start GUI. I'm going to try re-installing the OS one more time. If it has the same results, then I will download 10.1 stable and use it for the mean time. Thank you all for you help, I will be back with questions. And hopefully one day I can help you! lol

Regards,

[devils casper]

Partition Magic is tricky especially Boot Magic. it creates a lot of problems. stick to default options. Dual Boot is default in all Linux distros..... the simplest way is.... install windows first... Leave 'Unpartitioned/Free space' for Linux. No formatting, no partitioning.
during Linux install, select unpartitioned/free space for installation. don't change anything in Boot Loader section. let installer do whatever it wanna do. Dual Boot is default.....




casper

[Radiation]

Ok so I did another install, and the same result. I changed absolutely nothing in the intall. I let the same install which WORKED the first time run again. reboots to the command promt. So after doing some reading I throw commands at it.
I tried startx. and Startkde. neither worked. But here is what I got after executing startkde. Verbatim.

kdeinit: Aborting. $DISPLAY is not set.
Warning: Connect() failed: : No such file or directory
ksmserver: cannot connect to X server
Error: Couldn't attach to DCOP server!
startkde: Shutting down...
Warning: Connect() failed: : No such file or directory
Error: Can't contact kdeinit!
Starting artsd!
kcminit: cannot connect to X server
startkde: Running shutdown scripts...
xprop: unable to open display ''
usage: A bunch of command variables....

startkde: Done
username@linux-comp:~>_

So I'm lost for words. I know that its alpha. But if there was a problem then it would not have installed correctly to begin with... The first install worked fine. It would still be working fine if It wouldn't have messed up windows xp. If you have any suggestions please let me know! Thanks again.