I'm using Debian etch with kernal 2.6, and my GUI just... won't work. I've attempted to install nvidia drivers, which didn't work, i tried the vesa drivers which sort of worked but I ended up not being able to use the keyboard, and I tried the nv drivers which just didn't work at all- i got a bunch of random pixels.

I am at a loss for what I need to do now and no one I know or anyone on IRC chat can help. What should I do *also when I tried launching Ubuntu off the live cd the GUI didn't work either and it only worked when I did the safe video settings*.

Assuming you're using Xorg ... have you tried dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg?

Yup, I went in to the Xorg.conf file and changed some thigns manually as well such as the monitor refresh rate. I've done reconfigure many times... should I try other drivers instead of nv or vesa?

Okay I did reconfigure again and picked several different drivers but that didn't help the problem. Anyone know what I should do next?