zero time to choose recovery

For what it's worth, this CD is the one from Canonical(?), so it's ext4. The previous identical install CD came from Cheapbytes and was ext3.

Wouldn't that be a problem with the website though? What's the address?

ny times, but I'm having a lot of problems getting resolutions right on the desktop, the google start page dimensions aren't normal, so it probably isn't just that, or so I assume.

gksudo gedit /etc/default/grub

change the timeout there

save the new file and close gedit then run:

sudo update-grub

You will now have more time to select recovery mode.

The video issues sound like a poorly configured video driver which will need to be resolved in a seperate question

terminal> prompt> punched in command> enter> request password> entered password> prompt> punched in command> enter> prompt. I'm assuming I did something wrong, which wouldn't surprise me with my lack of familiarity with computers.

That was the gksudo command, not the second.

And I'm the only user.

in the grub file you will see:

GRUB_TIMEOUT=<some number here>

e.g.

GRUB_TIMEOUT=10

Change the timeout to whatever you wish.

Did you edit the file which opened? You can copy and paste to and from the terminal so you can copy the commands directly to alleiviate any human error

You've lost me,which is not hard to do. Since the gksudo command didn't work, I hit the help box, which showed me another way to find the file containing grub_timeout="10", changed it to 30, file>close>save, then a series of dialog boxes --do you want to-----blah,blah, which I didn't understand of course. The upshot was that I was refused to do anything and my machine was now going to self- destruct because of my impertinence. I was left with two open dialog boxes and the terminal, which had gone on about its business with some cryptic doodling that made no sense to me. Since the terminal didn't have a prompt for me to use and I (probably wrongly) assumed I couldn't have two open terminals at the same time to be able to run sudo update-grub, I closed it to the warning that, of course, I was getting ready to make a big mistake, which I did. Opening a new terminal, I plugged in the update command>enter and can't remember what the result was because it was too fast, I think. I then restarted the machine and the " click esc... flew past just as before and the machine now has the identical problem it had before. I should have mentioned before that I didn't understand what you meant about the cut and paste. Hopefully in about ten years I'll have advanced so far I'll even know how to use a text editor so I can make paragraphs and indentations when I try to describe my many screwups.

I'm going to call it a night since I have to be up early. Thanks to you both for trying to help.

Several questions have arisen. I can't figure out how to copy the gksudo command. The pointer disappears and becomes the I-beam(cursor?). The second is that when I google the command, its first entry is about exactly that command, a ubuntu documentation on MacBook4-1Karmic, which means I'm even more lost.

I gave it another try when I figured out that I was supposed to 'select' the gksudo command. This time it ran, I changed 10 to 30, closed gedit and ran the second command to update. That seemed to run, but on restart nothing had changed. I'm trying to see if the ext3 cd can help, but so far nothing. If no one has any more suggestions I'll wait until Tuesday morning and reinstall with the ext3. Thanks again to both for the help. I'll click on that solved----- at that time.

In terminal

sudo update-grub

and reboot.If you still don't se grub entries hit Esc and then you should be able to see them.

[sudo] password for jdoe:
Generating grub.cfg ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-19-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-19-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-14-generic
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin
done
jdoe@jdoe-desktop:~$

This is what the results were after reboot>esc. This machine or install seems to be failing faster than I can even attempt to fix the problems. This morning I found that my panel thunderbird icon had disappeared and to get to this message board I had to scrounge up my launchpad password. I assumed from your suggestions, zvacet, was to hit esc IN the terminal window,so I'm not even sure I got that right.

One more in a now long list of messages: I'm toggling back and forth between two machines which supposedly have identical installations, just in case it's causing any confusion.

That last suggestion worked, but the patient didn't get well. I didn't even have to hit the escape key. I selected recovery and after lots of text, tried to boot. It kept repeating the prompts for username and password, so I finally had to shut it down by force. After I started it back up, all the original conditions remained. I'm tempted to wipe it out, but I'm game to keep trying. I'll bet this is the way most newbies learn, and I hate that word. So I suppose the rules require me to drop this phase and start a new question about the (possible video driver). I'll click "problem solved" in about 12 hours, and again thanks for all the help and training. Dan

Thanks skihero, that solved my question.