Comment 16 for bug 553200

Yep, this bug is now affecting me too. Weird because Ubuntu 10.04 was working fine on this Dell Inspiron 2650 for some time before. So now I used scalawag_'s suggestion at http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9054571&postcount=7 to get to the Ubuntu Desktop:

At the gdm screen:
Ctrl+alt+F2
login with username and password
sudo service gdm stop
startx

After I was booted into the GUI, I created a special user(I used username: freeuser) via System>Administration>Users and Groups, set it up with admin privileges, then enabled the "Don't ask for password on login" setting. So then after I reboot, I click the user "freeuser" and it logs in automatically (sometimes gdm restarts and I have to click it a second time, but after that it works). Then after that, I had to(as I've always had to do with this machine while the nvidia graphics are installed) set "Appearance Preferences"(right-click the desktop, click "Change Desktop Background", then "Visual Effects"), from Normal to None.

Something else I notice is that my nvidia driver won't install properly. I click System>Administration>Hardware Drivers and then try to activate the driver(version 96) but it fails with "Sorry, installation of this driver failed. Please have a look at the log file for details: /var/log/jockey.log" (attached).

Seems unlikely that any typical new user could even make any of this work. So in the case of this Dell Inspiron 2650 anyway, this problem is a vote for buying Ubuntu preinstalled.

Thanks to everyone helping with this!
Shannon VanWagner - humans-enabled.com