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It is possible to launch GDM, Gnome's Desktop Manager, automatically at startup so that you don't have to type startx all the time. Assuming you already have Gnome installed on your system, you just have to open as root /etc/inittab, and add the following line at the end of the file:

x:5:respawn:/usr/sbin/gdm -nodaemon

Make sure the path to GDM is correct, as it may change from distro to distro. Save. The next time you start your computer, GDM should show up :)