please help, how do get into the cento 5 gui from the command line after loading asterisknow?
To start X Windows, if it is not already running, type startx at the command line. However, if your question is about the AsteriskNow GUI, you should ask on the right forum.
Typically on CentOS, X will already have been started on console 7, so ctrl-alt-f7 will get you there.
Note that X is a resource hog and actively using it whilst Asterisk is running is not a good idea.