Re: Help!

[David Goodenough <david.goodenough@btconnect.com>]

On Tuesday 06 September 2005 13:14, Stephen R Laniel wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 06, 2005 at 07:48:53AM -0400, George Boyce wrote:
> > I'm not sure what to do from here! I typed in ENTER - no good. I
> > tried LOGON........still no good! Keeps
> > bringing me to  "username"@Debian1: ~$
>
> Good news: it's doing *almost* exactly what it should.
> When you get 'username@Debian1: ~$', that's called the
> "command line." It's a very powerful way of interacting with
> your computer.
>
> However, for new users, I think it's a better idea for them
> to be using a "graphical desktop." Debian comes with a few
> graphical desktops; "GNOME" and "KDE" are two popular ones.
> Just to give you some idea, here's a screenshot of what my
> graphical desktop (GNOME, with some KDE apps) looks like:
>
> http://laniels.org/img/graphical_desktop.png
>
> Debian should, by default, install a graphical desktop on
> your machine. It's a tiny bit complicated to explain how to
> get a graphical desktop installed now that you've completed
> the installation. You'll need to install a number of Debian
> packages -- among them the gnome package -- but I don't know
> which ones to tell you offhand. I assume others do.
>
> Good luck.
You need to install X-Windows, and either (or both) or KDE and
GNOME.  Personally I use KDE, but the choice is yours.

You need to switch to the root user, and issue the following
command (for KDE, I am not sure for GNOME):-

apt-get install x-window-system kde kdm

This will install a whole bunch of stuff and after installing it all
you may find it starts the graphical logon (kdm) automatically
but if it does not it can be started either by rebooting or by
issuing (again as root):-

/etc/init.d/kdm restart

If the install of X-Windows does not go smoothly (and this will
depend on your graphics card) then you might need to come 
back for some more help;

David