Still cannot get gnome up and running

["Alex Thomas" <aathomas@home.com>]

There is no ~/.xsession or ~/.xinitrc on my system.  running gnome-session produces error 

 

Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:

SESSION_MANAGER=local/debian:/tmp/.ICE-unix/321,tcp/debian:1064

 

Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:

 

Stumbling through two different books on how to set this up with no luck and local LUG is Mandrake/Red Hat/SuSE.

Please help???