avahi, dbus, hal - please help me start them!

[cogs10]

finally installed xubuntu 9. however, i have no keyboard or mouse to get into it. avahi is failing boot. i'm so totally new to linux that it took me a week to find out the problem.

i believe avahi is causing dbus and hal to fail, and i need them for keyboard and mouse. what i have done:
sudo gedit /etc/default/avahi-daemon
but it wouldn't go into edit, because it said i didn't have gedit, and after i tried to get it, it said it couldn't get it.
so one problem leads to the next.

i was trying to disable avahi, but do you know of a way to get dbus and hal working? i think i need avahi because my ubuntu addresses are unresolved. then, i can update everything. please help me, im new, thanks cogs

ps, upon searching, i'm guessing this problem is either due to an incorrect pathname, or an incorrect dependency in a config file. again, i don't know what to do?

[kerry_s]

i think you got a boned install and need to try again, make sure you use the check media option to check the disk first, make sure it's good.

when burning iso's, it's best when burn't slow 4X.

[cogs10]

thank you, but i've installed many ways, with the same results. i'm dual booting with windows xp professional. at first it was with wubi, then i burned the iso to disk (slowly), and chose the on-operating system install. (on winxp). please help with another option?