can't find desktop environment

[camelNotation]

Hello . i'm posting on behalf of my friend who can't access the net . He's installed linux redhat 9.0 in graphical mode and choosed minimum installation . He's formatted the drives and his hd is 30gb . He was asked to choose a password while installing . After the installation process completed , he had to give his username as " root " and his choosen password to get in . The problem is , he can't see anything in graphical mode . All he sees after logging in as the root user is something like " rootuser@localhost root " and nothing else . please provide directions on how to get to the mouse-dependent desktop environment and how not to log in as root and the benifit of doing so .

[kc0arf]

Hello,

He kept his setup option to login to the text mode. He is at a command shell, the basic Unix operating system.

Have him type in "startx", and he should be on his way to load up the xwindows environment.

Also, once he is done configuring the environment, he should make a normal user account, and put the root account in his back pocket. It is not good business to use the root account for everyday tasks.

Christian

[DMR]

As kc0arf said, the system is booting into the command shell (basically the equivalent of booting into DOS in a Windows environment).

If the "startx" command does work, you can set the system to automatically go directly into the GUI at bootup by opening the /etc/inittab file in any text editor and (for Red Hat) changing the following line:

id:3:initdefault:

to:

id:5:initdefault


If typing the "startx" command doesn't get him into the GUI (and the line in /etc/inittab already reads "id:5:initdefault"), there's a problem with the video/X server configuration. If this is the case, you can run Red Hat's X configuration utility from the command line by entering the following command:

redhat-config-xfree86

From there you should be able to verify and/or alter different facets of your GUI setup. If you can't resolve the problem and have any further questions, please post the full hardware specifications of the box, as well as the full contents of the /etc/X11/XF86Config file.

[big_k105]

Hello . i'm posting on behalf of my friend who can't access the net . He's installed linux redhat 9.0 in graphical mode and choosed minimum installation . He's formatted the drives and his hd is 30gb . He was asked to choose a password while installing . After the installation process completed , he had to give his username as " root " and his choosen password to get in . The problem is , he can't see anything in graphical mode . All he sees after logging in as the root user is something like " rootuser@localhost root " and nothing else . please provide directions on how to get to the mouse-dependent desktop environment and how not to log in as root and the benifit of doing so .

well you said he choose minimal install. and with a minimal isntall that doesnt include gui. it only leaves the basic stuff. so have him reinstall but this time dont choose minimal :)

atleast im pretty sure that minimal doesnt include gui. i cant remember as it has been quite some time. so if the startx doesnt work my guess is it is not install :)

[DMR]

well you said he choose minimal install. and with a minimal isntall that doesnt include gui. it only leaves the basic stuff. so have him reinstall but this time dont choose minimal

Woops, missed that- you're right; a minimal install doesn't include the GUI packages.