video card recommendation ?

[Ric Moore]

On Mon, 2011-07-04 at 10:22 -0500, Bill Walton wrote: 
> In the process of eliminating possible causes for the problem I'm
> having with installing 10.04 LTS I decided to try the 8.04 LTS install
> I have running on my other workstation.  It worked flawlessly, without
> a single issue.  I've no idea what the problem is with 10.04.  I
> double checked the MD5 Checksum on the download.  Did a verfify on the
> CD I burned from the ISO.  Everything at that level checks out.
> 
> The 10.04 behavior is really strange.  The first time I ran the Live
> CD the screen display was not an issue at all other than the message
> that Ubuntu was going to run in low-graphics mode.  It didn't look
> 'low' so that was the first question mark.  I expected maybe 640x480
> but it was much higher than that.  The issue surfaced when I rebooted
> after the install.  I could not, still cannot, understand why the Live
> CD could make use of the video card / monitor but the installed
> version could not.  Why would Live CD not install as a default the
> same settings its using?  After the initial install the use of Live CD
> itself became an issue.  Sometimes Ubuntu would come up, sometimes
> not.  Behavior varies from one boot cycle to the next.  Most recently
> it's come up to the splash screen (with the 5 little buttons under
> 'Ubuntu' on a red / purple background) and just sits there.
> 
> Thanks for the help.  Wish I could return the favor with a bug report
> but I just don't have time to spend on identifying the root cause of
> the problem at this point.  I can't get past the splash screen now in
> any event so can't even get to a terminal to gather data to report
> back with.  I'll get back to the 10.04 issue later, starting with a
> fresh harddrive, but for now I need a second development environment
> and 8.04 will do fine.

Bill, back in 8.04 it would by default set up your /etc/X11/xorg.conf
file for you. In 10.4 not. >IF< you can get that far into a working
graphic session, open the nVidia X-server setup tool, set up your
preferences, apply them and allow it to write out your xorg.conf file.
Before exiting, open a terminal and check the contents of that file just
to be sure you don't have a zero length file. A reboot and all should be
dandy. The option to write out that file is obscure on that menu... it's
on the second tab "X Screen Display Configuration" down near the bottom.
It SHOULD pop up and ask you for your password to proceed. If you can
get this far, you should be good to go. Good luck! It's the getting to
this point that is fraught with peril. Been here, done that. It worked.
Ric

-- 
My father, Victor Moore (Vic) used to say:
"There are two Great Sins in the world...
..the Sin of Ignorance, and the Sin of Stupidity.
Only the former may be overcome." R.I.P. Dad.
Linux user# 44256