init 4 > cannot find xdm

[vbsql7]

I have a brand new Porteus-v3.1-i486 install on an old PC.
Booting to text mode seems to go OK.

Now trying to launch the gui using 'init 4' and it spawns repeated errors of:

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No such file or directory: 
/usr/bin/xdm

... until the process is killed.

startx does nothing.
Neither does 'init 5'.

I tried 'apt-get install lxde-common' but I can't even run 'sudo' or 'apt-get' commands.

I'm using Porteus after failing with other small Linux distros because I have graphics issue and Porteus would allow me to configure the install to boot up in text mode.

Any guidance is greatly appreciated!

[Bogomips]

Welcome to Porteus. Please let us know which Desktop you are trying to launch.

[Jack]

Why not boot in Graphics Mode that how I do it and to test it boot in Always Fresh?

[francois]

1.0 login and passwords.
When you get into text mode, you have to enter login which is guest

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login: guest
passwd: guest

2.0 To boot into X environment.
2.1 Then once in guest account you can try:

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startx

2.2 If this does not work, this might mean that you do not have the desktop environment (How did you install porteus by the way?And on what media are you installed: hdd, usb, cd?). To get to know if the desktop environment module is there (kde, xfce, mate, etc.), you have to look in the file structure. I

To find your way in the file structure in text mode use mc (midnight commander)

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mc

And look into the /porteus/base folder and tell us what there is. The desktop environment should be there.

3.0 Verifying and installing DE.
You cannot install packages with apt-get, you are in a slackware derivative. This is no ubuntu or debian.

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apt-get install lxde-common

will not work

I would be surprised that you have downloaded porteus without the DE (Desktop Environment). If missing, the best thing would be to download the desktop environment (xfce for an old machine is a good choice) from here
And put it into the /porteus/base or /porteus/modules folder.

4.0 Packages installation under porteus.
The package manager will not install a DE (see above).

To install other type of packages you have to be in root mode and to do it the porteus way with porteus pacakage manage called usm:
su
toor # which is the password for root
usm -u usm
usm -u all
usm -h #to get the possible commands.

Don't hesitate to ask questions and even more important please describe in details what you have done, step by step, and the results. Outputs would be appreciated.