-- Posted by neotreo at 10:55 pm on Jan. 5, 2009 i just installed Ubuntu on my laptop. I couldnt use the live cd... idk why... so i got the alternative installation cd from their website. I installed it, and when i start up, I am at what appears to be some form of a command prompt. How do i get to a graphical user interface (gui)? -- Posted by bass09 at 10:57 pm on Jan. 5, 2009 i cant remember but i think its login username  = root password   =  toor -- Posted by Macropiper at 10:58 pm on Jan. 5, 2009 What video card does your laptop have? There may be poor support for it in the version of Ubuntu that you are using. -- Posted by neotreo at 10:58 pm on Jan. 5, 2009 Quote: from bass09 at 1:57 am on Jan. 6, 2009 i cant remember but i think its login   username = root password = toor well, i did my login stuff... but it does nothing after that -- Posted by bass09 at 11:01 pm on Jan. 5, 2009 how old is the laptop might not be able to take it and yes it very well could be the video card like he said   -- Posted by Chumbawumba at 5:17 pm on Feb. 8, 2009 well of course its not going to have a gui... you installed from a alternate cd but just to make sure login (with what you setup during install) and then type this: sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start if that doesn't work than use sudo apt-get install ubuntu desktop