Unity doesn't appear after installing Nvidia drivers
I've just installed 12.10 from scratch. Unity also started okay, but in a poor resolution. I found a setting (I think it was in "software sources") to change the display driver to Nvidia, and then I rebooted.
When Ubuntu now starts, it goes to the desktop (I see a file that I saved to the desktop) but there are no other screen elements -- no Unity, no menu bar at the top, no window decoration, nothing.
Ctrl-Alt-T and Ctrl-Alt-F2 work as they should, but it's kinda limiting...
- How can I restore the default driver? I guess I need a way to open those "software sources" settings again - or anything else that could fix it! I hope I don't have to type all this by hand.
- How can I install a proper Nvidia driver so that I can get up to 1280x1024? My old tricks don't seem to work, but perhaps they might if I solve #1...
I just went through this myself, the problem is that there is a bug in the Ubuntu installer that removes the Linux Headers needed for the Nvidia drivers to work.
You'll need to do the following:
From a terminal:
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic && sudo apt-get remove nvidia-current && sudo apt-get install nvidia-current
If you don't see output from nvidia-current being installed then one of the first two commands failed.
You'll need to reboot, and once you do you'll be able to use your computer again.
To restore the default driver you have to uninstall the package nvidia-current. You can do this in your STTYs (Ctrl-Alt-F[1-6]).
sudo apt-get remove nvidia-current
Afterwards simply reboot and you should be fine.