Resized Screen after driver upload, can't get control...

[luckyshot]

Hi everyone!

Well for those following my other thread dealing with net access, I'm now connected!! YEA!!! Well that party lasted a minute as my first task was to take advantage of "System>Preferences>Driver Hardware", and fetch me some drivers for my newly built mobo (with on board Nivadia Graphics) & friends...aka; hardware.
After uploading the new graphics driver(s) I rebooted to activate....now the screen is sooo BIGGGG that I can't reach any of the normally accessible buttons (like System) to control what occurred.
I'm a Linux newbie, having only a few hours on this OS, as yet I don't know how to work around a problem without access to the controlling mechanism. If this were windows I'd just go to START>SETTINGS>CONTROL PANEL>DISPLAY and fix it. Right now? I can't even see the
start button or anything similar let alone use it!!
Any suggestions?
Chuck.

[MikeTbob]

My suggestion:
Boot up the machine, press Ctrl Alt F1, do you see a command prompt? Ctrl Alt F7 gets you back to the display.
Try these commands and post your results.

sudo cat /etc/X11/org.conf

sudo lsmod

EDIT:

sudo cat /etc/X11/org.conf > xorg.txt

Will create a file named xorg.txt, so you can copy and paste from that.

[luckyshot]

I tried what your suggesting, using Crl/Alt/F1...got the command prompt and typed the command(s), was asked my password...then was told (over and over as I tried several times) Login incorrect
All the commands did the same.
Question? Just what am I supposed to copy/paste even if this was going somewhere? Thank you for trying to help.
Here's what I did in the meantime. Used my monitor remote (it's actually a flat panel HDTV), dialed up the RGB setting and told it to resize itself to the available volume. It sort of worked, here's the twist....I can now "see/use" the upper/lower bar controls, but when I go to System>Administration>Driver Hardware, and and load drivers to install, the dialog window is longer then my screen and the button for downloading drivers is out of reach! I've tried several things to try and capture the box and move around so I could activate that button...nothing!
In reloading that dialog box I discovered that I previously loaded an earlier version driver, not the recommended driver for my display. Now I can't reload the newer driver due to the fact that I can't see/activate the download function in that window.

[elija]

I'm going to do my usual trick here and ask a silly question just to rule it out.

When you pressed Ctrl + Alt + F1, you did login as yourself before running the commands?

See I told you it was a silly question; but in my defence, trying to log in as sudo cat /etc/X11/org.conf with your password would give the sympoms you describe.

[MikeTbob]

I tried what your suggesting, using Crl/Alt/F1...got the command prompt and typed the command(s), was asked my password...then was told (over and over as I tried several times) Login incorrect
All the commands did the same.
Question? Just what am I supposed to copy/paste even if this was going somewhere? Thank you for trying to help.
Here's what I did in the meantime. Used my monitor remote (it's actually a flat panel HDTV), dialed up the RGB setting and told it to resize itself to the available volume. It sort of worked, here's the twist....I can now "see/use" the upper/lower bar controls, but when I go to System>Administration>Driver Hardware, and and load drivers to install, the dialog window is longer then my screen and the button for downloading drivers is out of reach! I've tried several things to try and capture the box and move around so I could activate that button...nothing!
In reloading that dialog box I discovered that I previously loaded an earlier version driver, not the recommended driver for my display. Now I can't reload the newer driver due to the fact that I can't see/activate the download function in that window.

I'm trying to find out which driver your xserver is using, possibly revert you back to vesa driver until you get this sorted out.
And yes@ elija's idea, did you login first? My bad, I should have told you this.

[luckyshot]

I tried again, still get that message

[luckyshot]

Yes I'm logged in, I'm the admin user, and I tried every variable that I can think of to log into this terminal using Ctrl/Alt/F1. I'm sorry if I might come across a little short tempered as I've been at this for over 10 hours, haven't eaten, and keep hitting walls.
Just came back from a two hour break to clear my head, had some food but getting sleepy....I may end up waiting until tomorrow and re-visiting this with fresh eyes.
Thanks for your support.
Chuck.

[MikeTbob]

Yes I'm logged in, I'm the admin user, and I tried every variable that I can think of to log into this terminal using Ctrl/Alt/F1. I'm sorry if I might come across a little short tempered as I've been at this for over 10 hours, haven't eaten, and keep hitting walls.
Just came back from a two hour break to clear my head, had some food but getting sleepy....I may end up waiting until tomorrow and re-visiting this with fresh eyes.
Thanks for your support.
Chuck.

That's quiet okay, sometimes the best thing you can do is take a break and clear your thoughts for awhile. Your problem will be waiting patiently when you return!

Just to recap, you are logging in as your user and not root, right? Ubuntu has root disabled and you would use sudo to issue your commands instead of logging in as root.

[jippie]

I have the feeling you guys are out of sync, so let me try to come with some sort of screendump. Here is what I see after I have pressed CTRL ALT F1:

BTW: I replaced the hostname of my machine with ... hostname and my username with ... username

Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS hostname tty1
hostname login: username
Password: 
Last login: Mon Oct  4 17:40:38 CEST 2010 from 213.244.160.221 on pts/7
Linux hostname 2.6.32-24-generic #42-Ubuntu SMP Fri Aug 20 14:21:58 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS

Welcome to Ubuntu!
 * Documentation:  https://help.ubuntu.com/

62 packages can be updated.
28 updates are security updates.

No mail.
username@hostname:~$

Then once I start entering the commands as described above:

username@hostname:~$ sudo cat /etc/X11/org.conf
Password:
cat: /etc/X11/org.conf: No such file or directory

This error is caused by the fact that recent X11 versions are autoconfiguring. And there is actually a typo in the filename You may want to check with xorg.conf instead of org.conf, but I expect the same error because of this autoconfiguring.

To fix your issue of now, configure X11 for a failsafe session:

username@hostname:~$ sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf.failsafe /etc/X11/xorg.conf

After reboot you should return into a standard VESA mode.

Hope this helps

[luckyshot]

Thank you Jippie,
I tried to copy/paste your final code, still got:

Command not found

I got to the point where I just threw the Ubuntu boot disc into the player and let it re-install the OS. Set it up to format the whole HHD. Once it was up, and on-line I navigated to Drivers Hardware and downloaded the correct (recommended) drivers for the display.
Restarting was required, but when it booted it went into terminal mode (I can take that so many ways...) and was asking for login and password. I provided and it read out about a page and a half of stuff, then stopped when it got to checking the battery (what ever that means).
I tried Ctrl/Alt/F7 to escape and get to the desktop, it didn't work. In fact I tried all the F-keys to no avail. I tried rebooting and ended up at the same place....how do I get this OS to boot into the desktop?
I'm seriously considering windows 7.......