Ubuntu 9.04 boots to terminal - 9800M GTX

[olifre]

Originally Posted by miseryindeath

Well, I would give this a shot except for the fact that I have no idea how to edit the xorg.conf file.

Well, I think this might really be the case that it has detected the wrong PCI-ID. Thus, editing might help. To do so, you need "nano", the editor in the terminal you see.
Just do:
cd /etc/X11/
sudo nano xorg.conf
You can then edit the file xorg.conf and save using the keystrokes shown in the program (at the bottom of the screen - ctrl+x so exit, it will ask whether it should save the changes).

Originally Posted by miseryindeath

Also, mounting the drive (which was sda2 in my case) didn't work either. After mounting it and going to the place as described, I typed "ls" just to see what came up and it was stuff such as boot, bootmgr, etc. Not sure what that means, but either way, trying to install the files that way didn't work. Not sure what to do now.

Mhm - in fact, a normal Vista-Installation (and maybe even XP) has the folders "Boot" and the file "bootmgr" located on drive C (I think, they are hidden, though), so you seem to have been in the correct location? So the other files should have been there, too... You might try "ls -la" which will show some more verbose output (hidden files in linux, filetypes, date of last change) and see whether that helps. If the list becomes too long (which might have been the problem why you did not see the NVIDIA-stuff), try
ls -la | less
The command "less" will take the stuff it gets, show it on the screen and let you "scroll" in it with the up- and down-keys on your keyboard ^^. You exit it with "q", and you can search with "/"+keyword.
If you still do not see the files, you might copy them in your user-directory or desktop in Vista and try to find them by going through Users/username/Desktop on your sda2.

Hope this helps, and good luck!

[miseryindeath]

Okay. I've gotten somewhere. I pretty much reinstalled Ubuntu and got back to the Terminal as always. However, I managed to get the Windows drive mounted correctly and it now shows the nVidia files (YAY!). Bad news, though. The drivers you posted, olifre, are for the i386 and I'm running the 64 bit version. D'oh! Any help with this part? This might be all I need.

[olifre]

Originally Posted by miseryindeath

Okay. I've gotten somewhere. I pretty much reinstalled Ubuntu and got back to the Terminal as always. However, I managed to get the Windows drive mounted correctly and it now shows the nVidia files (YAY!). Bad news, though. The drivers you posted, olifre, are for the i386 and I'm running the 64 bit version. D'oh! Any help with this part? This might be all I need.

Ah ^^. Okay, here are the 32-bit-links (you can find all architectures here: https://edge.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x...hive/x-updates):

https://edge.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x...ntu1_amd64.deb
https://edge.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x...ntu1_amd64.deb
https://edge.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x...ntu1_amd64.deb
https://edge.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x...ntu1_amd64.deb

The 64-bit-drivers should work, however, in general, some things (concerning drivers) might still be problematic with the 64-bit-editions. Normally, there should be pretty much everything available - however, older drivers (very old ones) might not work, so if you encounder other problems (graphics-drivers are new enough), it might as well be related to a driver not being there in the 64-bit-edition.

Good luck!
(otherwise, try the xorg-editing ^^)

[miseryindeath]

Okay. It all loaded fine however when typing startx it still gives me the same error about not being able to find the PCI. I've edited the Device section of the xorg.conf file. Here's what it looks like now.

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
Busid "PCI:5:0:0"

This is so frustrating..

[olifre]

Hello!

Did you use
lspci | grep -i vga
first to see which number to use instead of the 5? (this was an example for his system).
For me, it is 1:0:0...

Good luck!

[miseryindeath]

olifre, good catch. I forgot about that command. After typing it in, I got 03:0.0 and 04:0.0. I re-edited the xorg file to reflect this and saved and exited. Afterwards, I typed in in startx and the screen went black, hard drive started making noise, and... 5 minutes later, still nothing. After restarting, the screen didn't go to the terminal, however this time after the Ubuntu screen it made a noise (sort of like a quick couple drum taps) and it's been blank again for another 5 or so minutes. Now what?

Also, I noticed when I hit ESC, it makes the same sound, but i can't see anything on screen.

Okay, so sorry for editing yet again, but I just figured I would you let you know that I GOT IT! I just changed the Busid from 03:0:0 to 04:0:0 and it worked! Woohoo! olifre, Anders, and pauljohn I appreciate the help extremely much. You guys are awesome.

[olifre]

Hey . Glad it worked, and from now on, life with ubuntu should be a lot easier for you .