[newbie] How do I get to the GUI?

[John Kimmel]

I am a pure newbie here.  I can't seem to get xwindows started. I typed "startx" from about every directory i could get to with no luck.  Always gives me an error.  Don't remember the error at the moment.  Guess I should have wrote it down.  Am I doing something wrong or is it a bad install?   Thanks,   John