Thanks for the advice
I tried alt control F1 which gave me a command line
- and allowed me to log in to a console, however, as I was typing the commands,
it then automatically went back to the graphical interface. I then loggin in
using the recovery mode which allowed me to run the
sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude dist-upgrade
this seemed to run until it listed a syntax error
with "freemed" which might be an application I tried to install in the past - it
then exited back to the command line.
When I rebooted, it gave me the same screen -
however, it tried to go past it, the screen would flash blank then white and
then back to the cream blank screen. Eventually it popped up a box
with:
"The greeter application appears to be crashing -
attempting to use a different one"
After I clicked OK, the same thing happened -
eventually sticking on the blank cream screen again.
Any ideas?