Ok, I have installed Kubuntu enough now to make me sick.

For some reason my logitech MX1000 and MX5000 (mouse and kbd) are detected fine and run well. When I let the computer sit overnight, in the morning they will not connect and I have to go use my hard wired kbd and mouse, which I keep connected all the time. Then when I restart the computer, X will not load. The monitor will be engaged (does not go to powersave) but the screen will be black. I didn't not change ANYTHING in the xorg.conf file. I had already installed my ati drivers and most programs.

I've tried reconfiguring my Xorg file with this command
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

however when I boot up I can't install the ATI open source drivers again. It will say Mesa no matter what I do, hence the reinstall.

This is really getting annoying! I need to move on to making other things work, like MythTV.

If this doesn't work out, maybe I should just use Xandros. So that would be two distros I could not make work. Suse and Ubuntu/Kubuntu not to mention Fedora, which doesn't like my hard drives (I have 6) and Mandrake which won't boot. I really like Envy and Automatix with Ubuntu, do any other distros have tools like these for newbies/automated installs?

Are you sure it isn't a hardware problem? Are all your cooling fans running properly? I had some strange things happen to me a while back and it turned out that my CPU fan was failing. The problems would be intermittent and things would sometimes work and sometimes not work...

If Xandros works for you, go ahead and give it a whirl.

OK.. I just installed Kubuntu (again) and I installed my graphics drivers and rebooted. Then I did automatix and rebooted. Then I poked around on here for awhile and rebooted. Now X won't start. The monitor sits powered (not in powersave) but nothing is displayed. Black screen.

My system fans are fine. I blew it out when I dumped windows.

Try Ctrl+Backspace to restart the X server.

Hit CTRL+ALT+F1 and see if you can get to a terminal. If you can, I'd look through dmesg and the /var/log directory (particularly xorg.log) to see if there's any good errors that are coming up.

From a terminal, you can also try sudo /etc/init.d/kdm restart to restart X.

Also, can you post the machine specs? Maybe some googling on your graphics card or motherboard will return some similar problems from other people and solutions.

Shut the machine down long enough to let it cool completely down, then see what happens when you start it up again. I am suspecting a thermal problem based upon your description.

It's not a thermal problem. I have a nice large Zalman and 2 system fans, all working properly.

I just redid my zorg.conf and it works now. I looked at my most current xorg.conf vs my latest backup (which I accidentally deleted instead of restoring :P. I'm not quite sure how to use the rm command. It kept telling me no such file or directory while trying to rename!) and noticed it listed lots of different resolutions when comparing with my most recent backup. And I did change my resolution in administrator mode.

Now I have to go reinstall Kubuntu again, because I won't be able to get FGLRX back. When it does it again I can post my file.

IS there a log equivalent to bootlog.txt in windows? xorg.log?

It gets worse by the minute. Now it won't FGLRX, which is a problem I dealt with WEEKS ago. I'm about ready to end this project. Maybe in a couple more years I'll try Linux again.

you may have a thermal problem, based on heat exchange, the best fan in the world wont stop a component over heating if it wont exchange heat with the heatsink...
another problem maybe that you need to unplug and replug your components, (i dont mean remove, just unclip ram and push straight back in, dont even need to remove from slot(ENSURE YOU ARE TOUCHING THE CASE AT ALL TIMES), same for cables and if possible, cpu, but in this case ensure you have some "Heat transfer paste" handy and reapply to cpu...(my recommendation is arctic silver, but have been told there is better around)

Now this may strange but believe me, i recover most problems like this, by doing just that...
Even systems, that have run for years, with not an ounce of problems, then all of a sudden, dead at post...
I do ram first and whalla working fine...

Once youve done this to your system, then rerun linux...

if still a problem, you may have a hardware failure, but i doubt it, if all else fails, see if win will work ok again, but as i said, you need to unplug/replug it first...

contacts loose contact, even gold plated ones(as 90% are now)...

OK. I'll do just that in a couple hours when I'm back from work.

Do you think I should get some isoproboal (sp?) alcohol and clean any contacts or just remove and blow?

You know, I read your post and thought "nahh.. " and booted up Kubuntu (again) Signal 11 on bluetooth adapter. I only got signal 11s before in Suse.

I wonder why Windows never reported any problems.

Ok, I went and removed and installed everything in my computer. And you know, it worked! When I installed Kubuntu everything went smoothly.

However, on the next day (this morning) I found that my bluetooth had still dropped (not that I was expecting it not to) and when I went to install MythTV I rebooted and found that I couldn't load the splash screen.

So I installed Kubuntu (again) and am now looking at Mesa after installing the ATI drivers.

Is it just me or linux is a never ending source of problems. It't is painfully clear I don't know how to use it.

some pc's and distros dont go together well...if your determined to use that distro then you would configure it to suit your pc...
but another distro may just work straight out of the box with your distro...\
it is really just try different distro's sometimes...

i have found some work great, especially if they have a live boot disc that can be tested on your pc...
once you do have an installed system thats stable, then you will enjoy the pleasures of linux, but like any new thing in life, it takes some getting use to and installing a new os is not always pain free...