Initial install, display coming up severely offset

Can you give the output of:

sudo lshw -C display; lsb_release -a; uname -a

Thanks

Can you also give the make and model of the laptop, it's an important piece of information which you have completely omitted.

As for the first question: I could if I had *any* idea how to access that information. I don't even know how to access the command line.

Second question: stupid mistake, oops. It's an HP Pavillion dv6000 series laptop with an AMD processor, unsurprisingly running an integrated graphics card.

If you copy the command I gave and press CTRL+ALT+T
Paste the command into the terminal and hit ENTER
copy the output and paste here as an update.

Thanks

Won't be able to copy since the computer doesn't connect to the internet either (since I can barely see the screen to even try connecting) but I will attempt to type everything in manually.

Result:
sudo: unable to change to shudders did: operation not permitted
sudo: setresuid () [0, 0, 0] -> [116, -1, -1]: operation not permitted
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
Release: 12.04
Codename: Precise
Linux ubuntu 3.2.0 -23-generic #36-Ubuntu SMP Tue Apr 10 20:39:51 UTC x86_64
x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I note that it has me logged in as a guest. Also not a shocker as all I can do is type in a password and hit enter, apparently I'm not even logging in at all.

ok and what is output of:

sudo lshw -C display

We just need the driver= bit and the Product line.

You can't do anything administrative from a guest account. Do you have the live-DVD that you installed from? If so boot into the live-DVD and use the 'Try Ubuntu' option. If everything runs OK and you can use it properly from the DVD, then something has gone amiss with your installation.

Tried that line, it gave me nothing about the driver. The question then leads me in my meager computer knowledge to wonder if it is describing the install as 'x86_64' when I know for a fact that the computer is only a 32 bit system, did I end up with the wrong version? I simply went to ubuntu.com and downloaded the version for Windows. Would I simply need to explore for the right version? This little experiment is turning into more work than I had any desire to do.

Here is mine:

andy@D420:~$ sudo lshw -C display
[sudo] password for andy:
  *-display:0
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 2
       bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
       version: 03
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
       resources: irq:16 memory:eff00000-eff7ffff ioport:eff8(size=8) memory:d0000000-dfffffff memory:efec0000-efefffff

You will notice the 'driver=i915' in the bottom section, that's the part we need from yours.

As you can't use sudo from a guerst account, you are going to have to do the command from the live-DVD.

Same issue he describes occurred to me w/ LMDE 201204 x64 LiveDVD (and post-install). Kernel 3.2.x

The wrong xoffset-ing (to the right) happens as soon as i915 module takes over, and so the problem appears soon as the framebuffer kicks in, so definitely before X kicks in.

It looks like this: http://www.politreco.com/files/IMG_20110610_090045.jpg

I didn't take that picture. I got it from this, over-a-year-old thread: http://us.generation-nt.com/answer/i915-framebuffer-wrong-xoffset-help-203891202.html

This is on a Dell Inspiron 15R 5520 (w/ 3rd gen i5 cpu), Integrated Intel 4000 graphics, and Radeon HD7670M

editing /etc/modprobe.d/i915-kms.conf and changing modeset=1 to modeset=0 and rebooting fixes this issue, and then the console, followed by the display-manager shows properly (centered) on the screen. But the virtual consoles are gone!! Meaning, if I try to switch to consoles with Shift+F# keys (1 to 6), I am stuck at a greyish background, kind of like the color of the background of the display-manager (mdm in the case of LMDE).