Trying to add Ubuntu 14.10 to my windows box. Have a new 3T drive and an old 120 SSD to dedicate to it. I want to get back into writing software and stuff.

Without anything dual boot even involved yet, I cannot seem to get Nvidia drivers loaded. I found them and downloaded them from Nvidia, but the documentation I have found doesn't work.

First, I cannot get a virtual terminal to come up. ctrl-alt-<f1> merely gives me a black screen. I gave root a password, but can't seem to get to a login prompt at the system level in order to install the drivers. su - in a terminal window is not good enough it seems.

Second, I looked at changing the inittab, but there is no inittab. Pfft. This Ubuntu is all nerfed up.

I have a spanking new EVGA GTX 970 and frankly I did not get it to be stuck in 1024x768 mode. So getting decent graphics drivers are a make or break deal here.

Should just go for a more conventional LINUX flavor? I would like to use Ubuntu because it seems to be most popular. Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated.

Okay I resolved this problem - kinda. I moved to Mint and was able to install nVidia driver. Yay! 1920x1080!!!!! Hurrah!!!

Okay, this is how I did it in case anybody cares. This is as complete as my sparse notes and memory allow.

1) Installed Mint from USB
2) System Settings -> Login Window -> Options -> Allow Root Login #enables root to login - may not be necessary
3) System Settings -> Login Window -> Options -> Automatically Select Last Logged In User #uncheck this
4) sudo passwd root #give root a password
5) restart system
6) hit <escape> after bios screen to bring up grub menu
7) select "recovery" kernel from grub menu
8) I don't know if this had impact, but I went to root login prompt and messed around and figured out that I couldn't do anything there - lol
9) ctrl-d from root login back to recovery menu
10) select to boot normally. This magically enables virtual terminals which were not otherwise enabled any other way that I could find.
11) Log into GUI as "root" using your password.
12) Download or copy the NVIDIA*.run file from nvidia.com into $HOME/Downloads
13) ctrl-alt-F1 #into virtual terminal and log in as root
14) cd $HOME/Downloads
15) chmod +x ./NVIDIA*.run
16) sudo service mdm stop # stop the window manager "mdm" for Mint ("lightdm" for ubuntu if you can get this far in ubuntu)
17) sudo ./NVIDIA*.run
15) It had an initial error about something, but I just selected "continue." Follow the remaining instructions and prompts.
16) reboot # restart your system

The login screen should come up in 1920x1080 resolution and so will the desktop when you log in. Whew! Enjoy!