when i try to boot linux ubuntu it loads a ms-dos like screen and I can't get beyond there

oh and I cant reboot in windows so i currently have an unworking computer. anyone know how I would also go about getting windows back (I know everything I had is probably gone)?

What have you done at last before the non-booting computer?

Actually, X11 does not work correctly.
Please provide the log of /var/log/xorg.0.log.

I installed ubuntu using unetbootin (it installed everything for me without a cd and I just rebooted and am now stuck where I am). I don't know if that's what you were asking or not, but I couldnt really understand your question.

Please type:

sudo fdisk -l

If the system ask you for a password give your user password when requested, you don't see nothing when you type it, then press enter.

Copy and paste result here, thank you

Doug, not to put unetbootin down (never used actually) but the normal CD install guides you through the partitioning of your hard drive. Did unetbootin do that? If you want to keep windows, it's important to make sure the install divides the drive and makes a space for Ubuntu (i.e. partitioning). Otherwise, you end up just installing over windows. Respond to marcobra's question and then someone can explain whether or not windows still lives on your drive and what your options are.

when i do tha it says...

Disk /dev/sda: 98.5 GB, 98522403840 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 11978 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x41ab2316

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 11485 92253231 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 11486 11978 3960022+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 11486 11978 3959991 82 Linux swap / Solaris

That output shows that you have one approx 100GB hard drive with only Linux installed. It looks like the install approach you took did not involve preserving a partition for windows. If that is what you intended then that's okay. I'm not sure why you are getting a command line though when you boot. If you did a server install that would be normal. Did you intend to do that? A desktop install should install a GUI desktop environment. If you have a gui installed you can type

startx

at the command prompt to load the gui. If it is not installed you can do

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

Give your password when requested (nothing will show as you type it) and that will add the necessary packages to get a normal graphical desktop environment.

In order to help, it would be useful to know what you expected and what you would like to accomplish.

Well the original goal was to have it so I could boot either windows or linux, but I realize I did that wrong and probably can't save windows anymore. Right now I'm just trying to get either to load so I can use my computer. When I type startx it says "program 'startx' is not installed. You can install it by typing: sudo apt-get install xinit. I type that and comes up with a whole list of things (i.e. http://us.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/main libxmuu1 2:1.0.3-1ubuntu1) and under all of them it says either "could not resolve us.archive.ubuntu.com" or "Failed to fetch." At the bottom it says
"E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try --fix-missing." So I ran apt-get update and I'm still in the same place I started with nothing working.

I also tried sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop and it says "E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try --fix-missing."
So I tried it with the --fix-missing and it said "Unable to fetch some archives"

thanks for all the help

Thanks Jim Hutchinson, that solved my question.