I downloaded and burnt a Live CD for Knoppix 4.0.2 and tried to boot my system from the Live CD, everything works just fine. All my hardware is automatically detected and it automatically takes me to the GUI interface just like Windows would do. Amazingly easy. I had no idea that Linux could be such a hassle free OS. I just popped in my CD and everything worked just as they should. I then decided to go full fledged with Linux.

I then downloaded debian GNU/Linux 3.1 r0a "Sarge" and burnt the CD 1 (i386-binary) and installed it on a partition of my Thinkpad T20 laptop.

I can now boot in Debian and go to the command prompt but cannot go to GUI by typing "startx" at my normal login (not root login). I cannot startx even from root login. Can anyone in Knoppix user forum help? (I posted the same question in the Debian forum yesterday but no one responded. I am guessing Debian forum is not as active as Knoppix.)

I also tried startKDE but that also didnt work. BTW I had chosen Desktop Environment while configuring...so I am guessing that all GUI programs are installed on my harddisk. Any guidance to this complete idiot at this time will be appreciated. How come Debian cannot automatically take me to the GUI interface on booting like Knoppix? I must be doing something wrong. I have spent considerable amount of time on this and dont want to give up. If someone can tell me what I am missing, I will be grateful.

No idea what commands to use or which directory to go to in order to find KDE. Not sure whether Debian is recognizing my video card. But if Knoppix can detect all my hardware automatically and since Knoppix is based on Debian, shouldnt Debian also recognize my hardware automatically?

Another thing. While configuring in Apt Configuration screen, I see a message saying "cannot access security updates" because it couldnt access security.debian.org. It also asks me to investigate it later. Is it something because my PPPOEconf is not setup? Does it have something to do with my GUI not working? The purpose I converted to Debian was to mostly web browse. But I cannot do that now without GUI. Can someone please help?