Re: Newbie video problems

James Takac wrote:
  

 After the splash Ubuntu screen, I see about four of the login screen
horizontally, and it goes down about 80% of the screen, with gibberish
underneath that. The screen has "untuubuntuubuntuubuntuub" going across,
with 4 logos, and a half username box, 3 username boxes, and another half
username box.

    
      

Ok, sounds like the driver have been switched to either the wrong one or wrong 
mode.

Use CTRL-ALT-F1 to get a console. You'll have to login there. Don't worry that 
it wont echo the password, that's normal

next type "sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf" without the quotes. You'll be asked 
for your password again. Scroll down to where you see the graphic card 
idintified.  You should see something resembling the following

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"Generic Video Card"
	Driver		"nv"
	Busid		"PCI:1:0:0"
	Option		"AddARGBVisuals"	"True"
	Option		"AddARGBGLXVisuals"	"True"
	Option		"NoLogo"	"True"
EndSection

What does yours list there? Take note more so of the driver here.

Below that will be the monitor and default screnn areas. Might help to report 
back what they say as well

At the very worst, where mine says "nv" can be replaced with "vesa" just to 
get a working screen. For nvidia cards it's usually "nvidia" for 3d support 
or "nv" for 2d acceleration

When making a change use CTRL-O to write back to disk. CTRL-X will exit back 
to the prompt at which you can type "sudo reboot" to reboot the system for 
changes to take effect for now

Do you recall exactly what you did before things went awry?
  
    

I was going to suggest exactly the same thing, but realised you can do 
the same thing in a way that may be easier for a new user by running 
dpkg-reconfigure.

I.e.:

get a terminal using ctrl-alt-f1
log in as a normal user.
type:
sudo -i
and type your user's password to become root.
then type:
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

This will start a text mode menu system which lets you reconfigure the 
graphics card. If you say yes whenever it asks you to autodetect 
something, and choose the selected option the rest of the time, you 
should get a working configuration. If not, try setting the driver to 
'vesa' instead of (probably) 'nv' when that option comes up.

You need to type:
/etc/init.d/gdm restart

to restart the graphics system (x server) after you've changed the 
configuration. You shouldn't need to reboot.