Configuration – How to Disable LightDM

Have you looked at gnome startup applications? It's possible it won't work running a pretty naked install like that. gnome-session-properties Is the generic way to do it. Let me know if it doesn't work and I'll delete it.

Ok, so I figured out a solution- purge almost everything nvidia. First steps were through the terminal since I didn't have a working GUI. I followed http://peniwize.wordpress.com/2009/07/27/how-i-solved-my-nvidia-driver-kernel-module-api-mismatchj-problem/ Which basically boiled down to the following:

sudo nvidia-installer --uninstall
sudo rmmod nvidia
sudo find / -type f 2> /dev/null | grep -i nvidia | grep -i \\.ko | sudo xargs rm -f

sudo apt-get remove nvidia-current

Then reboot:

sudo shutdown -r now

That got a low resolution incorrect ratio (stretched) GUI going again.

Then once some GUI is back, get synaptic package manager and purge everything left with nvidia in the name EXCEPT for the nvidia-common that depends on ubuntu-desktop (there were two nvidia-common packages in my case). Everything else goes. Then restart again and presto it's my old desktop back at proper resolution.