I shouldn't edit default files anymore :/

[Rooftops]

Well I have practically bricked myself out of my laptop. I have been trying to get better resolutions (followed most of the guides to no avail) but decided I'd edit the refresh rates and horizsync in xorg.conf-vesa. Now, I (obviously) messed up somewhere and now when I try to load, it says

Fatal server error:
no screens found
giving up.
xinit: Connection refused (errno 111): unable to connect to X server
xinit: No such process (errno 3): Server error.

Is there some way to edit the file from the initial terminal or must I reinstall completely? :/

[Archangel-Amael]

Of course there is a way to edit the file. There are lot's of ways. Use nano, or vim etc. Further unless you need to use the vesa settings then it won't make much sense to edit it. Might be best to post info on your laptop, especially your gpu. Do you have a driver for it? Etc. These types of things are hard to diagnose without proper information. You will also need to look at ubuntu 8.10 as well as the kernel version to see if there are reported problems.

[sagaci]

you may need to edit a file in the /etc/X11/ directory

[jacktrack]

theres a lesson to be learnt here.

Before editing any default files. its best to make a copy first.

[Archangel-Amael]

theres a lesson to be learnt here.
Before editing any default files. its best to make a copy first.

Indeed. Or even better, don't mess with things you don't fully understand.

[gunrunr]

even if did mess up those configs it wouldn't "brick" your device, as long as you can boot something there is always hope. Or in my case i can just swap hdd's

[macphail]

seriously?
you mod'd xorg.conf and now you can't get X to start....

i suppose renaming /etc/X11/xorg.conf to xorg.bak and starting over didn't work?

either that, or i am missing something here.