I aquired a knoppix 5.0.1 cd from a friend about a week ago. I managed to install it onto an 850mhz/256ram/32mbvid/5.5Ghdd that was just sitting around. I chose the debian installation instead of the other two options.

I've been using a mswindows environment for the past 16 years and have grown accustomed to being able to change what I want, when I want and how I want(through a GUI).

I am interested in learning linux but my main issue with the above mentioned debian installation is everything is command line based for the root. I've read that in previous versions, root login to the GUI was allowed and thus all those nice graphical windows and point-n-click tools were available(midnight commander reminds me of editing autoexec.bat files in the DOS shell).

All I really want to do is be able to log in to the GUI as root so I can explore the depths of linux unrestricted by sudo(which i can't get to work in my normal account..in fact, I can't do jack in the normal account), command lines and the inability to write files to my 2.1Gig partition(I have 98mb on the root partition available to my user login).

So, remembering that:
1. I'm totally new to linux(1 week);
2. I have no privileged access with my user account(can only write to the /home/user, can't access the cd rom, su/sudo
doesn't work since the user isn't in the sudoers file...etc.);
3. I'm allergic to shell text editors that don't show thier commands(esc + : .....then what? q! @%*$&#)
4. I did manage to get the ethernet card working through root;
5. I'm stuck at 640x480 resolution;
6. I managed to install the beast to hdd using the graphical knoppix installer(the shell one didn't like me); and lastly
7. I don't *need* to learn linux but would *like* to.

I need to find a way to log in to the GUI as root so I can explore the heck out of linux, otherwise I have to figure out how to get my 12 hours back.


Thanks,

Manny