All of the distros are old. The link is dated June 19, 2003. The drivers will
not work with Ubuntu so it is pointless to try to get them to work, IMO.

Your best bet is to try other distros in the hope that they have included
drivers for old video cards or to play around with a generic one and settle for
low res. My own feeling is that this is likely problem with the monitor and card
settings not working together. I would try different monitors and see if that
helps. If not, then I would look at using boot parameters to get it to boot into
the video mode that suits your monitor.

It is best to set the boot parameters at the time of installation and that way
they become part of your permanent setup. However you can change them by editing
grub as this link explains:
grumpymole.blogspot.com/.../...b-boot-parameters.h\
tml
vga=771 and vga=ask explained below:
johanlouwers.blogspot.com/.../...r-for-debian.html

Tried to run dpkg-reconfigure
xserver-xorg and did something wrong and now Xserver says it's not set up
properly! Is there a backup of that file or do I have to reinstall UBUNTU!

Well I reinstalled UNBUTU after my last problem. Still had streaks of course
so took values that worked for Xorg in Puppy Lnux amd edited Xorg.conf and
now all I get is a blank screen! All I changed were the Horiz and Refresh
rate.

I was not able to edit the file in UNBUTU, wouldn't let me become "SU" ,
said my password was wrong for some unknown reason. Anyway, loaded up Puppy
again and used it to edit the file and maybe UBUNTU didn't like that.

Could you reccomend a UBUNTU specific book ?

Ubunbu does not use "su" for admin. You must use "sudo" then the command.

What I should have said was, when I tried to edit Xorg.conf it asked for my
password but then rejected it, a password I had assigned earlier in the day!

Is there more than one user on your system? You can change the password really
easy. Here are some links to get you going. Please book mark.

http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Hardy
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Home?action=show&redirect=FrontPage
http://ubuntuforums.org/
http://psychocats.net/ubuntu/index
http://monkeyblog.org/ubuntu/installing
http://www.linuxreality.com/
http://ubuntuclips.org/
www.unix-tutorials.com/tutorials.php?os=Ubuntu

Thanks for the bookmarks, I saved them and will check out.

Only one user, me, on the system. I created the root and user passwords when
I installed the system which is why I don't understand why the program can
say they are wrong!

Whenever you are working at this level things can go awry. However, your
installation is intact. You just need to get X up and running again. If worse
comes to worse you can always boot the Live CD and edit xorg.conf manually.

It can be found at /etc/x11/xorg.conf. You will need to use sudo gedit before
the path to edit the file. However you may want to read the man pages first.
Type man xorg.conf in a terminal or in Firefox or go to:
www.x.org/archive/X11R6.8.0/doc/xorg.conf.5.html

Generally you need to run: sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg and you did this
and it messed you up, but that should not deter you from trying again. It is
just a matter of answering questions and if you gave a wrong answer once, don't
give the same one a second time. Another option is to boot the Live CD and
configure it the way you want by pressing F4 at boot up. Then once it boots save
the xorg.conf file to a usb stick or something similar. Then copy that file to
your etc/x11 folder. If this does not work then copy the contents of the file
and paste it into the xorg.conf file on your Ubuntu installation. It is worth a
try, since you are messed up anyway.

UBUNTU correctly indetifed the SIS-530 but guess didn't know what parameters to
pass to it. I think I need to change the refresh rate and the article on GRUB
didn't seem to address that. GRUB file would only accept numbers for row/col,
like 80x43.

It's interesting too that the screen saver display is nice and clear but the
normal display is terrible

With Puppy Linux if I use Xorg and their "generic driver" it works o.k. and in
that case it's 1024 x 768, 56Hz Horiz and 71Hz Refresh. Also if I use Xvesa
there is no problem.

Wonder why UBUNTU didn't use Xvesa which seems to be more trouble free, at least
for me.

Generally speaking you need to set the display properly before you install. If
you had changed the display to vga from grub at the initial booting before it
was installed then you would not likely have had the problem. When the Live CD
boots, you can change the graphics settings with F4. This enables you to control
the way Ubuntu boots on its first boot up.

Once it is installed the settings are then stored in xorg.conf and it is
trickier to work with the file because if you mess it up then you may be working
in text mode until it is sorted out. Worse things can happen and you won't be
able to read the screen at all.

Puppy is generally set for lower resolution to begin with and Puppy Linux is
going to look the same on my computer as yours. It won't use my 3D graphics
card, etc. but will just give the plain vanilla to all. Ubuntu tries to get the
most of the graphics card and Ubuntu will look different on different computers
because of it.

What we need to do is to figure out how to get your computer to work at a lower
res and stay there. This is problematic on several levels. If we straighten it
out, it may become a problem in the future because your settings will change if
xorg, gdm, the kernel or your drivers are updated. There are no guarantees that
we can get it to stick.

Possible solutions include running an older version of Ubuntu or even another
distro, running a distro that is meant for older computers such as Puppy, DSL,
Minime, or AntiX, or persisting and being prepared to repeat the process once we
get a handle on it. You have been exceedingly patient thus far. I am not sure
how persistent you are willing to be.

I am not a graphics expert, and you may want to look further afield at a site
such as Linuxquestions.org or the forums specific to distro that is dedicated to
older computers. My experience is limited because my card tends to work without
much fuss. People who are likely to be able to help you are ones that have been
there and done that. I will of course add my 2 cents, but you seem to be running
out of suggestions on this forum, I think. I don't want to give you false hope
by pretending to know an easy solution.