Installed Ubuntu cant get pass black boot screen cant login

type 'startx'

the startx didnt work said cant find command or no command

when it boots up it ask for my user name and password I put it in and this comes up myname@name:~$ and I dont know what to do next, plus I think I lost my windows vista in the prosses and I cant get my cd to run in the computer to even load that back on now!

Okay, you need to make sure you have this stuff installed.

Try typing 'gdm' or 'man gdm' and see if it finds anything.

If you do not have it installed, try
su root
type your password

then 'apt-get install gdm'

Hope this helps!

How did you install it, everything was ok with installation? No errors among those ok things (you can scroll up using Shift+PageUp)?

Ubuntu should start with a graphical login, what you see probably means that something went wrong.

You have not necessarily lost vista. It really depends on what have you chosen during installation. If you have chosen "use entire disk", then it's gone for good. But if you used free space (e.g. shrinking vista partition before), or installed it besides vista in some other way it's probably still there.

Try pressing escape when the "GRUB loading" message appears, you may have an option to boot windows there.

well I tryed the gdm it said command not found, man gdm said no manual entry, and su root said authentication failure. as for the windows its gone but I do have the disc for windows vista but the computer cd-rom wont run any cd with the way the computer is right now I quess.

I installed it on line then it made a disc at the end and restarted the computer it seem to install fine then it said to remove the disc and itwent through it starting up ask for login and been stuck since cant even use vista disc to get my old os back cause the cd wont start.

I don't really understand what you mean by installing it online. You've downloaded the iso, burned it and run the installer from cd, is that right?

There must have been some problems with the installation, have you checked the cd (there is an option for that in the first menu) prior to installing.

Whatever the system state you can always use a bootable cd (be it vista, ubuntu or anything else), they are all self contained and don't need anything on the disk to run.

yes I downloaded iso burned it and than installed from cd when setting it up like a fool I used the hole disc and lost my windows, but anyway it starts and ask me to login and nothing, the instalation seem to go fine didnt say anything about errors but its stuck on the black screen and the last thing it said is atanner@tanner:~$ and no matter what ive been told to put in (gdm, su root) nothing works

What you are saying means that many important things haven't been installed. So because you didn't see any problems during the installation, i'm guessing there were some disk errors on the cd.

You can put the cd in now and select "Check CD for defects option".

It was the standard graphical install of 7.04 feisty? If the system works all right from the live cd and the cd has no defects, then maybe just try installing it once more.

Thats the thing I cant get cd to load it aint working now (the cd-rom on the computer wont work now.) or any cd I was going to just put windows back on but nothing will work in it now.

is threre a way to put a command in to get cd-rom to work and load the disc again.

So before the computer would boot from the cd and now it doesn't?

Booting from the cd doesn't really have to do anything with the systems on the hard drive, all that is needed for this is in firmware, and can't easily be changed.

Try entering your bios (F1, F2 or delete) just after turning on computer) and make sure cd is first in the boot order. http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/hermanzone/p1.htm#Changing_the_boot_sequence_in_CMOS.