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I have been trying for several hours to get to the desktop in Wheezy (amd64 and i386) on Virtualbox but when I execute: startx i just get a slightly different looking prompt.

Do I have to do something before I can access X?

Contents of /var/log/installer/syslog : http://pastebin.com/5ZwpbFxR

service gdm3 start
service gdm start
service kde start

All result in unrecognized service error messages

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Did you install your Debian with Desktop Environment? Does it not load on start up? How come you end up in terminal without GUI? – SkyDan Jul 8 '12 at 19:04
Yes- i ticked the 2 options (I forget exactly what they were)- something like "Desktop Environment" and "Standard Utilities" – Lee Tickett Jul 8 '12 at 19:05
No idea why it doesn't load on startup- that's essentially my question. – Lee Tickett Jul 8 '12 at 19:06
Try service gdm3 start as root and append the output, if any, to your post. – SkyDan Jul 8 '12 at 19:09
May be xdm. Try that instead of gdm. More options include kdm, lxdm... dont' recall others. – killermist Jul 8 '12 at 19:17
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1 Answer

up vote 1 down vote accepted

Try apt-get install task-gnome-desktop. From your logs, the DM/DE was not installed, although Desktop task was selected. This is probably a bug.

Is there any reason you are using testing version of Debian? That's why it's called testing -- because nothing is quite working yet the way it should.

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I will try that after a fresh install (i have been messing around with it so much i feel it's tainted :). To do with a Raspberry Pi / Gambas3 / DomotiGa / Other project i'm working on- need to use wheezy rather than squeeze. – Lee Tickett Jul 8 '12 at 19:51
Thank you very much for your help. A couple of steps and all working now! – Lee Tickett Jul 8 '12 at 20:25

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