use x programs from command line

ubuntu karmic 9.10

I was told that if i was to install the server set up then xorg i would have ubuntu start in command line. I was also told that i would have a enough of a gui that if i do a notify-send from commandline what ever i way will pop up like it is sub post to I was also told that if i do synaptic or some other program that uses x i could well i cant so what did i do wrong. i want to see what it takes to set smothing up like this but it seem to be out of my pay grade. by playing around i found out that if i install gdm and gnome-session-bin using wget i can get a commandline when i start and gui if i say start firefox but the gui is in the upper left hand corner only