First off, thanks for reading. My problem is that every time I try to install a version of Linux, my PC freezes and just stops installing. I can still move the mouse cursor, but that's it. This problem occured in trying to install ELX Linux and College Linux (I was looking for the easiest Linux OS, these seemed to fit the bill). The only Linux OS that installed correctly was ASPLinux, but I was confused when it asked me to log in, I did so, and then it asked for some "[root@localhost]#" crap. I had no idea what to do and couldn't find out what to do. I gave up on that distribution because of that, fearing it would take more command-prompt than I'm capable of (which isn't much, at least not yet). When I tried to go back to ASPLinux, after checking the installation packages (or something of that nature) it says that it cannot install and reboots my PC. Please help me, I just want to install a Linux OS on my old PC. It's a Compaq Presario 4800 series with an Intel PII 333mhz processor. I'm looking for a user-friendly GUI which requires LITTLE OR NO command-prompt to install or boot. The interfaces of College Linux and ELX Linux looked great in screenshots, but I never got to experience them and I don't know if I can. Any information on my problem and how to fix it would be greatly appreciated. Once again, thanks for reading.

Enter "startx" at the prompt "[root@localhost]#". This will give you the gui, X-Windows, assuming you installed X-Windows as part of the initial installation of that distribution. By the way, you need to get used that "[root@localhost]#" crap, as you put it, as this is the Linux command prompt, and if you're going to be using Linux, getting comfortable at this prompt is going to be handy, to say the least, just as the DOS prompt is important to DOS/Windows. If you want a distribution that's designed to be user-friendly, try Mandrake. Your indicated hardware specs should suffice as to the installation of any distribution that I know of, so I'm not sure what's causing your PC to "freeze" during installation. I've never tried any of the distributions that you mention, but I'm a Mandrake and Redhat user. You might want to give Redhat a try. If you do a text install of it, I think it would be your best bet as to a successful (non-freezing) install. Good luck.

Pardon me, as my link for Linux-Mandrake was incorrectly added. Here's Mandrake's site.