I just installed Debian on a seperate partition from my Windows XP installation. This is a really stupid question but how do I go from the command line to the actual graphic environment? Did I completely forget to install that component?

Each time I boot up I'm given the option of selecting which operating system to use. If I select Windows it runs as it should. When I select Linux I'm eventually taken to a login. I'm able to successfully login as either root or my user account that I set up during the installation but I can't figure out how to do anything after that. I fooled around for a bit and I managed to get into the vi text editor but it's all in a DOS-like environment.

Based on some reading elsewhere I typed "startx" to initialize the "X Window System" but I received "_bash: startx: command not found". I'm not sure if that has any relevance.

Furthermore I've seen "APIC error on CPU0: 40(40)" come up countless times throughout the installation and while running Linux. I'm hopelessly lost. Should I scrap Debian altogther and try something else?

Thank you for any help,
- A clueless Newbie

Either you didn't install x windows or startx is not in your path environment. If you do not have a /usr/X11/bin directory or a /etc/X11/XF86 directory then x windows is not loaded. The console command to change directories is cd:
cd /etc/X11/XF86

BTW linux is case sensitive.

BTW do not knock the DOS-like environment. linux is not 100% GUI based there are lots of console commands that are very usefull.

apt is a debian utility that can install x windows and a desktop.

apt-get install xfree86-common
apt-get install gdm

Should help you get started.

While installing debian, after the base install, it asks you if you would like to install any additional packages. The first option is 'Desktop Enviornment', which is what you want.