X, and other windowing systems, are used for the convenience of viewing more than one application at a time. Logon to the system. It may take a minute or two for X Windows to appear.
Some workstations are faster than others due to differences in hardware.
To determine if X is completely initialized, move the mouse in several directions on its pad. If the pointer on the screen follows your movements, then X is ready. Find the menus. Using the mouse, position the pointer in any part of the background. If the pointer is on a window or icon, then it is not on the background.