Unable to start Debian KDE

I have almost no experience with Linux in general and Debian in particular. I've just installed a Debian distro on an old P2 box. The install appears to have been done successfully, except I cannot load a GUI desktop using startx. I keep getting the following message:

Quote:

---

Xsession: Unable to start * -- No "/Root/.Xsession" file, no "/Root/.xsession" file, no session manager, no window managers and no terminal emulators found; aborting

---

I guess I have to install and/or configure something. Everything else on the the install appears to work fine.

Anybody have any suggestions on how to resolve this problem?

Thanx for any assistance offered.

try, as root, init 5
that should give you an xserver login screen.
if you still get errors then part of xfree didn't install.

I had already installed a XFCE4 desktop and it works. Ufortunately, I can't get rid of it. I tried installing gnome but the install failed.

BTW, this is probably a user error since this is my first Linux install

Thanx

Bob

I was able to get debian to install a gui, only after I did a network install from a mirror site.
when I used the cdroms [ I have all 14 ] it fails installation of any software outside of the base system.

I finally got a GUI desktop functioning properly after 3 reinstalls, a total of 4 install tries all together. It was just a matter of finding the right ftp site and twiddling with the monitor settings.

Each install was about 6 hours. So it took me 24 hours to finally get a desktop.