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I have a good Compaq computer that has had both Debian and Ubuntu 7.10 on it for the last year. I have tried to learn Linux but I was unhappy with 7.10 because it would not network. I have today tried 2 different downloads of Ubuntu 8.10 and have installed each three times and have not yet to see the desktop. I tried the kernel recovery mode (repair broken packages). I see nothing work. I allowed the partition mode to use the whole disc - Guided. It starts to boot normally but after it asks for and accepts my user name/password all I get is an orange or black screen with a mouse pointer. There are no errors that I can see on the GUI. Can anyone guide me to someone that can help? What have I done wrong? Does everyone have to learn how to program in code just to install Linux? Does Ubuntu 8.10 have bad downloads? Thank You!

I guess I was never meant for computer programing. I tried the Ctrl - Alt - F1, Logged in, saw a bunch of words about ubuntu and was presented with the prompt like I have used in Linux Terminal mode: xxxxxx@xxxxx-desktop:~$.. I tried the command and got "process ID syntax error", followed by a list of command endings to check on running processes.