where's GUI?

[crabby117]

Hello all-
Sorry for the newbie question, but...
This company just got a Dell PowerEdge server with RedHat Linux 3 ES. I've gotten it to boot, and it prompts me for a login at a command prompt. I can log in as root, but how do I get the GUI (xwindows?) to kick in?
Thanks

 

[chipperMDW]

I'd advise making a new (regular) user before logging in under X. It's usually not advisable to log into GNOME or KDE or whatever as root.

To start X, your distribution probably provides a script [tt]startx[/tt] that should handle starting everything up.

You can make X start automatically at bootup (and use xdm to manage logins) by changing the initdefault entry in /etc/inittab. You probably change it to 5, but read the comments that are hopefully in the file to make sure.

 

[jstreich]

A lot of server editions of Linux used to not ship with a GUI, because the time spent drawing could mean lost clock cycles...

To see if X is installed, try

which X
which startx

and/or

locate X
locate startx

If X is installed, add a user w/o root permissions

useradd <username>

Change the password for the user

passwd <username>

Log in as the new user, and try running startx

If it's not, use RHEL's RHN to get it by running up2date and then the current XWindow package that RedHat has for Enterprise.

 

[crabby117]

Thanks folks! I was able to use startx just fine. During the initial set up process, I recall being prompted to create a non-administrative account, which I did. If I use that account to log in will I be able to do adminstrative things like install software, add users, and install the patches coming from RHN?

 

[franklin97355]

log in using the non root user and if you need to have root access use 'su'

 

[lgarner]

Typically you'll be prompted for the root password if root privileges are needed.