big problem, little newbie
 

I tried installing mandrake on a computer but it didnt like my onboard video or serial mouse. If i used the video it already had a screen would come up but i would see nothing. So i borrowed a video card from a different computer and preceded to install mandrake that way. Once i finished installing it i took the card out and tried the onboard video again, it worked for the first couple of times. Then kudsov (something like that) came up and said i was missing hardware, i ignored it since it was working but now the GUI login screen and everything else looks terrible and i cant read anything. i figured it would look better if it was in the terminal mode but i cant get there because i cant see anything. is there a shortcut to start the console so i can change the init= string? can someone tell me the order to push my up and right buttons to get to it (does that make sense)? Also my mouse never worked and is plugged in and everything, how do i get that to work? dam i hate being a newbie, linux gives me a headache

If you're in X and can't exit any more gracefully, do Ctrl-Alt-Backspace. If you're at a log-in screen, it ought to give you the option to switch. There's a way to pass the option at boot, I believe, but I can't think of it. Try a boot/rescue disk, maybe, if nothing else works. Go in and edit inittab, I think.

These default GUI login screens and runlevels in X are ridiculous to me. The default should be 3 and you should switch when everything's probably configured - and I wouldn't even then. But distros have to be "pretty" now.

I wonder if you didn't blow your monitor with faulty settings if you say it was working and is now screwed up. :( Hope that's not the case. Switching cards without changing the configuration again is, uh, not likely to work well, to say the least.

I don't know anything about serial mice but you are going to need special configuration. Onboard video really shouldn't be a problem unless it's ancient or brand new, I guess. I assume Mandrake has some whizbang X-configuration tool, so try that again, or do 'xf86config'.