Ok, I was trying to install the latest Linux Nvidia driver for my 6800 card, and it turns out during installation, the driver has a fit about my kernal... It was kind of a long messege about why it couldn't install, but it deffinetly had something to do with my kernal.

Anywho, now I can't login to any gui. This is because in my driver section in /etc/X11/XF86Config, it is still edited as "nvidia" instead of vesa. Is there a command I could do to change the driver back to vesa? I've tryed doing it in VI, but vi says something like "etc is not a file" or something silly like that, can't remember exactly

Thanks for ANY help.

Ok, I can get into vi and change it, but now....

*WARNING, VI NOOB, DON't HERASS! *

how do i exit....and save changes??? I know :q exits but it tells me that changes have been made, and I don't know what to press to save changes, thanks!

Ok, i got it edited back to vesa, and Got back into the gui...

dude, use nano, its alot easier. just "nano -w /etc/X11/XF86Config"
ctrl-O saves, ctrl-X exits...so much easier

Did you ever find a reason for this? Just messed up my 10.1 mandrake with the same deal. It too was right after resetting the permissions on the Nvidia files. I have found about 3 questions related to this....none specifically pointing to the same thing I did, but no end correction. I have tried making new users, threw in the cds and upgraded to 10.1 again, reset all of the rpm permissions back to the installed permissions...forget what the command was for that; newbie here too. reinstalled the nvidia drivers. on bootup it makes it to the nvidia splash screen then dumps to the localhost login prompt.

When I had mandrake I had that same problem. It wouldn't start the x server. Have you made sure you got all the Load modules that it tells you to remove. I can't remember what they are off the top of my head, but if they are still in the xf86config file, you won't be able to start the x server

I am pretty sure I did. Was to remove the <dri> reference and enable the glx. It ran fine, but well enough is never enough for any of us and I was trying to get neverwinter nights to run on linux. It ran with the nvidia drivers just fine for the two days or so after installing them, but the game returned a permissions error and I edited the perm's on the same two file the original poster mentioned per the nvidia readme. Havnt needed to do a reboot for quite a while, but that just rings as being the source of my problem. The other thing I noticed in the boot log is that PAM used to list the main user as on UID 501, now it is 0. Still dont know enough about what I am doing to even know if thats an issue

oh man i'm a mess. I'm not even posting on the thread i thought i was. Kindly disregard this frazzled jerk. Troubleshot this thing so long I dont even know where i'm at anymore. sigh