okay, when you are logged in, type "startx" which should start xwindows, the graphical display program that enables all the graphical stuff to happen. if this does not work, you will see a lot of error messages. have a read through them and see if there's anything obvious in those messages telling you why it's not working. If it works then you can skip the next section.
if you can see why it is not working, then you need to edit the file /etc/X11/XF86Config (i think, mandrake may have put its XF86Config file elsewhere, i do not know. use the "cd" (change directory) and "ls" (list) commands to find out where it is hiding if so), there is an easy to use program which will edit this file for you, first though i would backup your original XF86Config file in case you erase it and then need it again. to do this, do "mv /etc/X11/XF86Config /etc/X11/XF86Config-backup" and remember that all commands in linux are CAsE senSitIVe! as you can see that command simply moves the file XF86Config to be a file called XF86Config-backup. now we are ready to issue the following command (as root) "xf86config", this program will ask you a number of questions about your video card, monitor, keyboard, mouse et cetera. it will then save a new XF86Config file at /etc/X11/XF86Config (so if we hadn't shifted the old one out the way you would have lost it), if you still can't get "startx" to work then keep going through xf86config a couple of times answering questions a little differently because chances are there's some set of options that will work for you. If you really can't get xf86config to write a decent XF86Config file then see the next paragraph.
Okay so this paragraph assumes all else has failed, now you will have to edit the file /etc/XF86Config manually. this involves using a text editor, so if you are not familiar with the basic commands of the text editor you are going to use, read a tutorial before you do this. most of the easy text editors do not come installed in mandrake. the easiest and best ones to use if you are totally new are nano, pico and jpico. I don't think any of these are installed already, but try typing their names in just to make sure. you can install pico from the second mandrake CD i think (which i think you don't have), by installing the rpm of the "pine" package. or you can install jpico by installing the rpm package of "joe" (again possibly on CD2), and i think nano needs to be downloaded and installed from source (it's an easy one though and will almost certainly install fine). your other choice is to use emacs (which is probably already installed) or vi (which is definitely already installed) but they are harder and as i say you want to read a tutorial befor etrying to use them. so. type "
nameoftexteditor /etc/X11/XF86Config" and you should see your current XF86Config file. incidentally, if you already moved your original XF86Config file somewhere else, it might be a good idea to move it back to /etc/X11/XF86Config so you know you are working on the original (and probably least buggered) version. This file contains many comments to help let you know how to edit it, basically you want to find the section that's giving you problems and edit it so it works. that's as best i can do, apart from advising you read some easy web tutorial about how to edit XF86Config. once you have edited it to your satisfaction, save it, exit the text editor and try "startx" again.
Okay, now i will assume that you got through all that (or just typed "startx") and it all works fine, so how do you get it to boot into the graphical display every time you start up? well the answer is quite simple. you must edit one line in a text file. in a text editor (as root), open the file '/etc/inittab' and find (quite near the top) a line that looks like this:
now see that 3 in there? that sets the system to runlevel 3. runlevel 3 is usually a multiuser system with full networking. to get it to boot into a
graphical multiuser system with full networking, you need to change the "3" to a "5" (in mandrake it's a 5 you want, some systems use a 4 instead) and save and then exit.
see
here for more informationFinally, i'm a bit worried that you have logged in as root here. that's not a good idea for many security reasons. have you created any other users on your system yet? if not, type "useradd" or "adduser" at a command prompt (as root) , i forget which is which, one is a nice question and answer thing and the other is not, go with the nice question and answer one (whichever one that is) to start with as it also asks you to set user passwords, which the other one doesn't do.
here for more infofinally, did you know about the forum at
http://voidmain.is-a-geek.net/forums/ ? there's a mandrake specific forum there and you'll probably get good answers on it as well as posting here, just thought you should know.
[ April 10, 2003: Message edited by: Calum: crusader for peace & freedom ]
