fresh install woes

I've insatlled mandrake 8.1 from the ISO's I downloaded frrom their site. Everything seems fine, but when I try to execute any software ie startx or even pico from the command line then I get a cannot be found message As I navigate through the directoires it seems that they have not been installed- despite electing to install pretty much every package in my install options. I have reinstalled several times to the same effect. I have a 3 gig partision on my hard drive for mandrake0 and have treid various format attempts on installation as well Any ideas anyone thanks in advance