Hello,
I'm sorry to come here and be a bother, believe me, I'm viewing this as somewhat of a last resort after paging through scads of documentation and searching your forums for similar problems.

I'm new to Linux. Sure, I've functioned as an end user on several linux and unix machines before, but most of that was simply submitting batch jobs to Statistical Packages and hardly counts :P

Anyhow, I thought I was ready to finally take the plunge and get a copy of linux running on my home PC. After spending a fair amount of time on Wikipedia and speaking with a few friends, it seemed as if Ubuntu was the preferred "beginners linux" and I should start my adventure there. I have an Intel Core 2 Extreme (quad-core) processor, so I burned the 6.10 iso for 64-bit PCs and was ready to give it a whirl. After booting and choosing "install" I got a nice friendly Ubuntu splash with a bouncing bar. Gravy. But shortly afterwards I was given "X Server error: no screens found". Ouch.

I've spent some time researching install errors. It turns out that my APCI might have been screwing some things up (I disabled it and now I at least get a linux prompt after the X server error), I read a few folks claiming they had that issue but 6.06 didn't (I tried 6.06 and I still get this error), I've read a number of folks commenting on how they installed new drivers and it helped (but I don't know how to install a driver if I haven't even gotten the OS installed).

So I'm stuck and a bit frustrated. I understood when I started that this was going to be a journey, but I somehow figured I would have at least been able to install the software (and from there be fighting with driver installation issues). Instead I feel parked at step one. Can I install drivers without the OS installed? I found this (https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source...02/+viewstatus) it seems to be the same bug that I'm experiencing, but I didn't find a fix there.

Anyhow, thanks for your time. And I apologize if this has been asked before and I failed to find the answer. If you want to just point me at the other post and link that NEWBIE emoticon at me, I understand :P

EDIT: Whoops! Forgot to add. I've got an nVidia 8800 GTX installed. I heard that nVidia cards typically worked better with Linux, but I thought I should mention that.

3 suggestions:

1) boot in VGA mode at the Live CD prompt. Option #2 or #3, can't remember.
2) use the Ubuntu ALTERNATE install CD, which is all text-based and requires no X server.
(what kind of monitor do you have and what is its resolution?)
3) No adventure/newbie stories!!!! Get to the point! LOL

1) I gave that one a whirl, no dice.

2) I'll try it tonight, thanks. (I have a 21" CRT, I'd have to drudge up the documentation for you if you'd like all of the resolutions available but I typically run in about 1600x1200. It's roughly 3 years old).

3) My apologies.

2) Check. The text only alternate install worked like a charm, from partitioning my hard drive to installation.

My X Server still believes I have no screens found, but now (hopefully) when I find some of those posts where people discuss updating their drivers and fixing their X Server, I can follow along at my plodding pace and fix my bloody copy.

Thanks again for the help, hopefully I won't be back to bug ya again