Ok, got it working.... Woot! The next time I booted it from the livecd, I paid a little more attention to the graphics card issue and went with the VESA option instead and the desktop popped right up. In fairness to the Elive folks, the graphics driver selection options were a pretty prominent part of the boot process and I should have tried that first. Anyhow, to the OP and other posterby Tigerbow - [OLD] - Live mode
Exact same problem here. Booting off the LiveCD eventually gets me to eliveuser@Elive[~]$. I am very new to Linux and have been trying out a number of different distros desktops. When I type the logout command, it goes back to asking me for my Username and PAssword, but indicates that it is in "Elive tty1" mode. (sorry for the lack of detail; I am a linux newbie and didn't tby Tigerbow - [OLD] - Live mode