Hmm … can you run ANY commands ? … try this … Open a terminal and run:
gedit ~/Desktop/delete-me.txt
if gedit opens … close WITHOUT saving.
Then run:
sudo gedit ~/sudo-delete-me.txt
if gedit opens … close WITHOUT saving.
Did either of those work ?
[EDIT]
When you say “locks up” do you mean just the terminal, or the whole PC ?
Will it let you run:
ls -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d
if so, can you post the output.
The first command opens a window with a file delete-me.txt in it.
The second locks or what I am calling locking I cannot put my password in to continue and when I press enter I get the following
mark@mark-Aspire-5755G:~$ sudo gedit ~/sudo-delete-me.txt
[sudo] password for mark:
Sorry, try again.
[sudo] password for mark:
Sorry, try again.
[sudo] password for mark:
Sorry, try again.
sudo: 3 incorrect password attempts
mark@mark-Aspire-5755G:~$
The last command give me
mark@mark-Aspire-5755G:~$ ls -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d
. … bumblebee-stable-precise.list
mark@mark-Aspire-5755G:~$
When typing in your password in the terminal, nothing will show up. But don’t worry, it’s actually typing in! Just type your password and hit enter, it should work fine 
When you said “lock up” before, is this what you meant?
As A Future Pilot says … when you enter your password, nothing will be echoed to screen, not even ****** … but the password IS being entered, so just type your password and hit enter.
@ A Future Pilot
Welcome to the forum
Thanks.
It is working I did try that before ( I know you are now just laughing at me) but i must have missed a digit.
Nope … not laughing … or I’d be laughing at myself too … that baffled me for a day or two when I first started … I can remember the face-palm moment well when I realised my mistake
Does glxspheres now give a higher frame rate when started with optirun ?
Thanks for the welcome! I hope to be of some help to the people on here if I can! (And I’m sure receive help in turn! )
I nearly said “you’re welcome for the welcome” … but that sounds daft … Ooops said it any way
glxspheres ```That should run on the (lower powered but better battery life) Intel graphics card … let it run for a few lines … just to get an idea of the frames/sec rate … remember it, and close glxspheres.
Now run:
optirun glxspheresThat should run on the more powerful Nvidia graphics card … check to see if the frames/sec has markedly improved … and let me know.
Done that and YES there is a major difference, see below
mark@mark-Aspire-5755G:~$ glxspheres
Polygons in scene: 62464
Visual ID of window: 0x94
Context is Direct
OpenGL Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Sandybridge Mobile
3.354037 frames/sec - 3.262109 Mpixels/sec
2.115777 frames/sec - 2.057788 Mpixels/sec
2.118839 frames/sec - 2.060766 Mpixels/sec
2.137261 frames/sec - 2.078683 Mpixels/sec
2.133334 frames/sec - 2.074864 Mpixels/sec
2.137076 frames/sec - 2.078503 Mpixels/sec
2.126003 frames/sec - 2.067733 Mpixels/sec
2.137811 frames/sec - 2.079218 Mpixels/sec
2.136877 frames/sec - 2.078310 Mpixels/sec
2.137232 frames/sec - 2.078654 Mpixels/sec
2.127685 frames/sec - 2.069369 Mpixels/sec
2.143722 frames/sec - 2.084967 Mpixels/sec
2.098798 frames/sec - 2.041274 Mpixels/sec
mark@mark-Aspire-5755G:~$ optirun glxspheres
Polygons in scene: 62464
Visual ID of window: 0x21
Context is Direct
OpenGL Renderer: GeForce GT 630M/PCIe/SSE2
135.802237 frames/sec - 132.080169 Mpixels/sec
143.937525 frames/sec - 139.992486 Mpixels/sec
142.497405 frames/sec - 138.591836 Mpixels/sec
143.096585 frames/sec - 139.174594 Mpixels/sec
143.827310 frames/sec - 139.885291 Mpixels/sec
139.026321 frames/sec - 135.215887 Mpixels/sec
139.474977 frames/sec - 135.652247 Mpixels/sec
mark@mark-Aspire-5755G:~$
And thanks A Future Pilot I should have known better as I have been told that one before. :-[
It’s fine, we all forget things we’ve been told before
And thank you for saying “you’re welcome” to my thanks of your welcome 
Good … all working then
I take it you now know how to open an application using the more powerful nVidia card now then ?
you can either open it with from the command line by preceding the command with “optirun” … so for example:
optirun firefox
or you could edit the command line of the applications launcher to include “optirun” … then it will ALWAYS open with the nVidia card when you click its icon.
If you’re not sure how to do that … gimme a shout when you’ve decided you like a certain app to always open with the nVidia card.
The Intel card will make your battery last longer, and the laptop run cooler … so only use optirun where necessary, eg. games, or anything that appears too slow on the Intel card.
Nah … you’re not catching me out that easily
Ok Will give it a try. Now how do I get the wireless to work?
It is normaly turned on/off by Fn & F3 but that dose nothing that I can tell.
Can you post that as a new question please.
Call it something like “Wireless on an Acer Aspire 5755G” … and post it to the Ubuntu forum section … TIA