X won't start in Ubuntu

[gandhi]

I clicked the 'Desktop Effects' in Ubuntu (feisty fawn) and it said I needed to install the accelerated nvidia glx driver or something. So I let it download and install the driver, then restarted the computer.

Now X does not start; it just shuts off the monitor when it is supposed to start up the login screen. I attempted to fix the problem by typing

sudo nvidia-xconfig --add-argb-glx-visuals

because I thought this might make the system recognize the new driver, but it didn't work. I don't know how I can revert to the backup xorg.conf file now, because I think the above command changed the backup file to the original broken one. How can I get X back to normal?

[unchiujar]

You can try editing the xorg.conf file and changing the driver entry to either "nv" or "vesa".
The vesa driver should let you start X.

CTR+ALT+F1 and

nano  -w /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Maybe someone who knows Ubuntu better can provide more help. I use Fedora.

[devils casper]

How did you install nVidia driver? if installation is successful, execute this

sudo nvidia-glx-config enable

[gandhi]

After I clicked 'Desktop Effects' it automatically asked if I wanted to download the nvidia driver, so I just clicked yes, and I think the install worked.

I think maybe the driver is incompatible with my graphics card (geforce 4 440 go) because I think I read somewhere that the driver doesn't work with geforce 4 mx cards, and I have had stuff not work on my system that didn't work with geforce 4 mx before.

Anyway, I managed to switch the driver entry in the xorg.conf file to nv, so it's back to normal again.

Maybe I'll try to get Beryl working again sometime. It looks like they have tried to make it easier to use in Feisty Fawn. I don't know if my system can handle the graphical load of all those cool effects, though.

[tvilkov]

I have got exactly the same grpahics card as you, but on my laptop. You are right - the latest drviers do not work on these cards (well, it didin't work for me), but the ones with the version 96xx an dearlier do work. On my laptop I now have debian, and that runs the 8xxx version of the nVidia driver. Try http://rpm.pbone.net and look for the drivers there, or use the package manager.

[gandhi]

I guess it was the 9631 nvidia glx driver I had tried to install earlier, but it wasn't working. I tried reinstalling it, and it seems to have installed fine, but when I change the driver in xorg.conf to "nvidia", X does not work.

So... I tried installing the 7184 legacy nvidia driver (it was the most recent pre-9631 driver available in Synaptic), and that seems to work alright. However, when I tried to enable Desktop Effects, it said they could not be enabled. Does anyone know what the earliest nvidia drivers are that support Beryl in Ubuntu?

Would the 8xxx drivers work? If so, how do I go about manually installing an nvidia driver?