If I am in the command line interface how do I start running a GUI like KDE or GNOME?

And any advice on how to get the GUI to fill up the screen on my laptop (Toshiba Sattelite 5005-S507, NVidia GeForce 4 440 To Go, Mandrake 10.0)

I tried the help on the wbsite but being new at this It's a bit complicated, I need serious Barney Style.

start x, startx

startx but that will only work if you have your Xserver configured properly.

To configure your Xserver, either Xorg or XFree86, use on of the following(listed from favorite to least):

Xorgcfg -textmode
Xorgconfig
nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf (pico or vi would also work)
Xorgcfg

ALl of those also work replacing Xorg with XF86 if that is your choice of Xservers.


Things you need to know before you start:
1)The horizontal and vertial frequency of your monitor.
2)What driver your video card uses. Oh i just saw you use nvidia drivers. I guess you want 3D acceleration for them. That is a whole different topic....
3)The keyboard, mouse, and other sections should be pretty self explanitory.

I don't need 3d acceleration as I am dual booting and not planning on any intense graphics on the Linux partition. Is there any other reason to have 3d acceleration besides gaming?

yep, The next gen desktop enviroments will be 3D for better use of desktop realestate. See link

http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/5303/1/

Somewhere out there there is a video demo too

Couldn't get the demo but I saw the screenshots, that is awesome.

Ok I downloaded the Nvidia driver but have no idea how to install it. Also I can only see one refresh rate (60hz). Thanks for all the help.

Nvidia ia but simple to install. One driver for all cards. They have gone to great lengths to simplify this process. Their site should be helpful to you.

Why would you want 3D acceleration on linux??? So you can say "I have 3D accerleration on linux goddamnit@!" I have 3D acceleration on my laptop...I only get like 500 fps with glxgears (a nvidia card should get like 2000 or more), but who cares.

Yeah nvidia drivers are easy. radeon's are hell.

There are deffinately two different refresh rates for every monitor even LCDs. One is vertical one is horizontal.

I f-----g can not believe how f-----g stupid I was being the answer was in front of my face everytime i went to nvidia but I didn't f-----g just stared at it not realizing what it was. What was it you ask......it was the Install how to. step by freaking step. I feel stupid.

SO now I realize i don't have the kernal source which the driver needs to do whatevr, and when i go to install the package it says insert disc 4, the freee version only comes with 3 dics, i need to buy the full version for those options, lol, what a pain. But i am learning A LOT.

ok that is simple. find out what kernel version you are running and download the source from http://www.kernel.org
What version of what distro are you running? I will tell you what kernel source you need. but if your gunna do all that I would just suggest downloading the latest 2.6 kernel and compile it yourself.

Usually that last disc contains all the source code plus some programs that actually have liscensing you would have to buy.

I am running Mandrake 10.0 I didn't know what distro to go with so I just grabbed this one. AS far as compiling the kernal myself, that sounds a little advanced for someone who can nareely get a graphics driver installed.

With mandrake it should be pretty easy, isnt there RMP's you can download ? That install and configure it all for you ?

Yes there are but what I'm having problems with is learning all the correct bash commands and instructions. I try to makefile and get No rule to make target messages, so i'm reserching that atm.

Here's what I found: GNU Make

I posted the link to maybe help some other newb out.

you need to be in the same directory as the file your trying to make. That is the only reason you would get that error. Kernel compilation is soooo much easier than you would ever imagine.

anyways inorder to compile something:

./configure (if nothing to configure skip to step 2)
make
make install (as root. Will place the libs and files in the correct directories so your system can find them.)