Have been having a difficult time trying to get Ubuntu 8.10 to work with my NVIDIA card. I've scoured forums, tried several things and not much luck.

Upon boot, I get:
Failed to initialize the NVIDIA graphics device PCI:0:5:0
Screens founds, but none have a usable configuration

Distro: Ubuntu 8.10
Kernel: 2.6.27-9-generic
Video Card: 00:05.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation C51 [GeForce 6150 LE] (rev a2)
Driver: nvidia-glx-180

I've tried versions 71, 96, 173, 177, 180 all with no success. I've tried installing with Restricted Drivers Manager, envyg, manually, all with no success.

Please help!

It sounds as if you have a xorg.conf error. Take a look at the x.org site for alternative x.org configs, or post on a x.org forum.

Also, what driver are you using? You can also see if you can post your xorg.conf along with your problem statement - I suspect you can fix this by editing your xorg.conf to contain different settings - not sure exactly what (it depends on your specific issue) but if you post your xorg.conf here guys with more X experience should be able to help you directly...

I am currently on driver v180. I've tried all the drivers available w/in synaptic with no success. Here's a copy of /etc/X11/xorg.conf

# xorg.conf (X.Org X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page.
# (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# Note that some configuration settings that could be done previously
# in this file, now are automatically configured by the server and settings
# here are ignored.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
# sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
DefaultDepth 24
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "glx"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "NoLogo" "True"
EndSection

Hmm - I'm using an old AGP 6800GT, and it works 100% - here's my /etc/X11/xorg.conf (I'm on Fedora Core 6 with a 2.6.18.1 kernel):

Some notable differences with yours, if you'll look closely... you are using the nvidia driver, I'm using the native X.org "nv" driver. My "screen" section looks a bit different too - maybe you can try adapting yours? Could possibly be that section - seeing that the error message you get is
Also, try different color depths (valid values should be 8, 16, 24 and 32) - I once had a trident card that wouldn't work at any depth except 24 - other depths just put all these weird lines on the screen whenever I tried to get into X.

Furthermore - "synaptic" is an auto-package management thingy for Ubuntu, right? I've seen lots of posts with people having extreme difficulties with package-managing an update to their Nvidia provided drivers. The Nvidia driver is completely dependant on the kernel being compatible with it. Without a package manager (i. e. if you do the update manually) you compile the Nvidia driver against the running kernel's source. Then (usually) you have no problems. I. e. what could have happened with you is that synaptic got an incompatible nvidia driver version for the kernel you are running. If this is the case, you have two options:

1. Update the kernel (with synaptic, or whatever) to match the version the synaptic'ed nvidia driver was built for.

2. Get the Nvidia driver yourself and compile it against your kernel. (Note, you will most likely need the kernel source and you'll have to "point" the Nvidia driver to this source)

This is EXACTLY why I try to avoid package managers - you never know exactly what the bloody thing is going to change and do, and breakdowns (especially when trying to upgrade Nvidia drivers) seem much too common. Its too much like Windows - little black boxes that plug and pray, and often (surprise!) they don't work right.

Hope this helps...

you could use the Ubuntu catch-all fix for xorg problems. This'll fix it if it worked right after installing it:

The other thing to try is to stop fighting it and let nvidia do its thing

If it's an xorg problem, one of those is likely to fix it. I'd put more faith in the latter command, personally.