One thing leads to another .. reboot freezes with "ubuntu" logo.
 

System setup:
machine: HP Pavilion dv6000
Ubuntu verion 10.x ?

Since the touchpad was annoying me with its jumping around while typing, I clicked on the button at the top of the touchpad to lock the touchpad. Well that froze my touchpad pointer completely. I managed to get the keyboard working by getting a decent copy of xorg.conf, but still could not get the touch pointer to move.

On https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...roubleshooting, I read about putting:
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "touchpad catchall"
Driver "synaptics"
MatchIsTouchpad "on"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Option "TapButton1" "1"
Option "TapButton2" "2"
Option "TapButton3" "3"
EndSection

in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-synaptics.conf file.
Since, I didn't have that file, I put that at the end of my existing xorg.conf file in /etc/X11 directory.

Well that just frozen up ubuntu from booting.
When I boot, it comes up with the "ubuntu" logo and sits there.

If I can get to the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, I can remove the xorg.conf changes. But I am unable to get to the command line!

I don't have a Ubuntu CD. Can someone tell me how to reboot to command line so that I can edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file?

Select the (recovery mode) entry from your grub menu and select root console.

If you only have Ubuntu and no grub menu shows up, then hold down the shift key just after BIOS to get the menu to appear ( I think, never had a single Ubuntu system.)

I found the solution after much searching. It is because of touchpad disabling - both by gnome-settings and the touchpad driver. Thank you. See the link below :
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...7/comments/103