Still cannot get gnome up and running

[Alex Thomas]

There is no ~/.xsession or ~/.xinitrc on my system.  running gnome-session produces error    Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display: SESSION_MANAGER=local/debian:/tmp/.ICE-unix/321,tcp/debian:1064   Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:   Stumbling through two different books on how to set this up with no luck and local LUG is Mandrake/Red Hat/SuSE. Please help???