i am running linux for the first time and don't really fully understand all of it yet but i'm having problems with my gui. i'm dual booting mandrake 9.2 and xp. xp is on the first harddrive and mandrake on the second. throughout the installation i had many problems (i installed maybe about 12 times till it worked). the command prompt works fine but the gui won't load. it doesn't matter if i run the linux or the fail safe they bot take me to the command prompt. also i have never been taken to the origianl start up setup screen. i have tried reading through some of the other post on this related note but understand not a word of it (i haven't used a command prompt since '95. can anyone help with this? thanks in advance.

If you want Mandrake to boot directly into GUI, then log in as root and change the value from 3 to 5 in /etc/inittab... In case you're wondering, you need to use a text editor to modify /etc/inittab. Use pico if it is available on your system or gedit, pico /etc/inittab -or- gedit /etc/inittab taurus

I installed mandrake and had similar problems last night. It wouldn't actually load the files for the GUI. I had to reset before installation completed. However! If you put CD1 back in the drive and reboot your PC it will bring up the installation menu. Start the process again, but when it asks you if you want to install or upgrade a system, select upgrade. It should then load the files off disk two! That's what happened for me anyway! If the files load, and you can reboot, you'll probably get back to the command prompt. type 'startx' to get into the GUI. you can set it to boot into that from there. MAndrake 9.2 seems a bit buggy with the GUI. Esp if you have an ATI card. If it has worked properly you shouldnt need to do anything on the command prompt.... Well, try that first, there are other things you can do (get v9.1!)