Won't start up....

I'm forced to use a friends computer, it runs GNOME, and the terminal pops up, but only for a second, and it closes.... Any idea what to do?

First thing to do is to take a bit more time to clearly describe what you're seeing. Better info leads to a better diagnosis of the problem.

When you say "it runs GNOME, and the terminal pops up, but only for a second, and it closes" are you referring to your computer or your friend's computer? Your sentence stucture appears to indicate the latter, but your context hints to the reader that it's the former.

"it runs GNOME, and the terminal pops up, but only for a second, and it closes" Are you describing a problem with getting a Gnome terminal window to appear in general?

if yes ----> That's a doozy and the help forum of Gnome or your distro might be the best place to look.

if no and you can access the terminal ------> You saying the the terminal "pops up" says to me that you may be running SL off of a menu launcher/icon. Try running the SL client directly from a terminal window instead of off of a launcher/icon. Then you'll be able to see what error SL is quitting on and copy/paste all of the texty gobbledygook to us here. That way we have a shot at seeing what's going wrong for you.

Good luck!

Try to run the secondlife script from the terminal, that will keep it up so you can look for the error message. From a terminal promp try ./secondlife