Comment 5 for bug 96486

X broke for me as well, almost exactly the same scenario as above. I'm not terribly handy in a terminal, so instead I edited /etc/x11/xorg.conf via the Feisty Live CD, changing the driver to "nv" until I could replace 9755 with 96xx via Synaptic.

I mention all of this because it might be nice, when X breaks, to offer the user - right at bootup - to switch drivers to a predetermined backup... most likely the open version that came with install. If the user is savvier than me, and confident in their skills, they can still choose "No" and fix the problem in recovery mode or whatever. For the rest of us it'll at least get us to a safe place until we figure out what's up.

Sorry if I'm speaking out of place, and thank you for everything you guys do.