Need help with Linux (Suse) please?

Curry_Queen

Is anyone here experienced with Suse 9.0 please?

We've just set up a PC and installed Suse onto it (neither of us have ever used Linux before lol) and we're stuck at how to even get into the desktop display after putting in user name and password at the DOS type start up screen.

Help!


PS tried googling but not sure what we're looking for exactly and much of it doesn't make a lot of sense yet!

Stephen_Webber

startx should do the job. However, I would have expected it to automatically have gone into the graphical view, unless something is stopping this from working. How much experience have you got with Linux? Do you know what vi is? How about the inittab file in /etc ?

Regards,
Stephen

Darksun

Yeah, X (the windowing system) should have started automatically, so I'm assuming something went wrong with install, or that you selected an option that doesn't include X (such as a server install).

Personally, I'm not a big fan of SuSE (and don't know all that much about it, I've only ever used it on other people's machines so don't know much about setup). If you want a (fairly) easy to use distro, I recommend Ubuntu (or Kubuntu).

irnbru_2

Darksun wrote:

Yeah, X (the windowing system) should have started automatically, so I'm assuming something went wrong with install, or that you selected an option that doesn't include X (such as a server install).

Assuming X is installed the machine needs to start with run level 5 to have X after bootup sequence.

irnbru_2

Curry_Queen wrote:

Is anyone here experienced with Suse 9.0 please?

We've just set up a PC and installed Suse onto it (neither of us have ever used Linux before lol) and we're stuck at how to even get into the desktop display after putting in user name and password at the DOS type start up screen.

Help!

As other have pointed out your missing the X window system.

More than likley you've selected a wrong option.

There should be an option for something like a personal desktop or workstation.

Curry_Queen

I don't have any experience of Linux whatsoever so this was going to be a steep learning curve for both us! - however, we decided to ditch it in the end and load up trusty old XP Pro instead

One thing I realised after doing that though, was that I had forgotten to install all the mobo drivers before installing Suse, so the display adapter etc wasn't loaded and I'm now wondering if this was the cause of the problems?

If so, I may go back and create a partition to load it as a dual boot as some point so we can have a play and familiarise ourselves with it. Some of you may remember that this PC was the "bargain" bought from Ebuyer some time back, and apart from the initial problems with the linux loading it's actually a lovely little machine for what it cost, and XP installed very easily, no problems at all

hendersonb

Linux drivers are different from the windows ones. You will probably find them hard to get from the manufacturers, albeit nvidia aren't too bad for support but generally most distros support most cards out of the box. Another idea might be to use something like knoppix which boots from cd and doesn't require installing if you just want to have a play. If you then break something on rebooting it will be back to defaults but should allow you to learn some of the basics

Knoppix can be downloaded from knopper.net

Another site I find useful is https://www.linuxisos.org they have several distros to try, a lot of it is just personal preference, I know when I started out with Linux it was Red Hat and Mandrake because of there hardware support. After you get aquainted with the system you may like to experiment with some of the others i.e. debian which knoppix is based around. Although debian can seem very unfriendly to beginners it isn't to bad when you know system basics and get around to their logic. Ubunto (however its spelt) is another debian clone but made a bit more user friendly that people might like to consider if moving towards debian but finding it a bit complex.

Hope this helps - There is a wealth of knowledge on the various nixes on the net, but if you need help the user community is very friendly too, aslong as you appear to have tried foryourself first.

As you said a very steap learning curve when you first use linux but it is worth it in the end. :-)

irnbru_2

Curry_Queen wrote:

One thing I realised after doing that though, was that I had forgotten to install all the mobo drivers before installing Suse, so the display adapter etc wasn't loaded and I'm now wondering if this was the cause of the problems?

Assuming you just installed from CD/DVD, Suse shouldn't need anything special to get X up and running. It would install X with a standard VGA resolution if it didn't recognise your graphics card.

Curry_Queen wrote:

If so, I may go back and create a partition to load it as a dual boot as some point so we can have a play and familiarise ourselves with it. Some of you may remember that this PC was the "bargain" bought from Ebuyer some time back, and apart from the initial problems with the linux loading it's actually a lovely little machine for what it cost, and XP installed very easily, no problems at all

I'd just get a Live CD and play with that.

If you have broadband and a CD/DVD writer download some other distros too.