Slowly bringing up my new computer dual boot

I've been slowly setting up my new computer.  It's a nice machine.  Windows 7 gives it a 7.8 user experience rating.  Setting up windows was quite easy.  I have two SSD.  I had intended to load Linux on one drive and Windows on the other.  I tried to do that several times.  I may yet get that to work but for right now I ended up loading both on one drive.  Installing Ubuntu Linux on the same drive with Windows was quite easy as well but I had to use an access point and the ethernet connection.  I'm still having trouble getting the display driver installed and haven't even tried to load the usb WiFi driver.

I tried installing the driver for my GTX970 using the instructions at ask ubuntu.  After rebooting things looked normal until I logged in.  After logging in all I got was a background.  I can move the cursor around using the mouse but that's it.

I tried rebooting Linux in recovery mode but I couldn't roll back my driver changes.  I think I'll have to reinstall Linux and try again.  Unfortunately I don't know Linux well enough to muck with it.

On the good side, Civ 5 plays much better in Windows on the new machine.  I hadn't realized just how marginally playable it was on a machine with a 5.1 user experience rating.

Still, I want to start learning Convolutional Neural Networks using tools like Torch 7 on a machine with enough CUDA cores to not be too painful.

Building out a new computer.

About two weeks ago I had a new computer built for me.  It isn't top of the line but it is very good.  I intend to have dual boot between windows and Linux.  I had them install Linux but they installed the wrong version.  I wiped Linux and installed Win 7.  It was quite painless but took several rounds of updates and looking up drivers for various components. 

I went with the ASUS USB-AC51 wireless WiFi adapter.  The adapter wouldn't work until I installed the drivers from the adapter's CD.  Unfortunately that's not going to work for Linux because I have to compile the driver from the code on the disk.  The computer's builders told me the driver kept throwing errors in Linux.  I think it was beyond his skills.  He knows how to install Windows but Linux was outside his comfort zone.  I happened to have an access point I was using for my Blu-ray player.  I plugged it in and ran Linux from the installation disk.  It made the connection just fine.  At least I have a back up plan until I get the driver for the AC51 compiled and installed.  I will be able to let Linux get the latest version of the software components during the install.  But first I will create a recovery disk so I don't have to re-install Windows.  The Linux documentation says that if one intends to do a dual boot one should install Windows first because it wants to format the drives during the installation.

Originally I was going to just install Linux along side Windows without creating a recovery disk for Windows.  The MBR vs GPT issue scared me off.  I'm so out of touch with current technology.