Turns out that this is not it It's a kernel bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/661394
I hope it will be fixed soon... back to windows for now

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=157678
there.

ugh, gotta get 3 posts before I can post this:

after doing a bit of research I found out it is a bug in the nvidia drivers:

Hello, I'm new to Salix and I've installed 13.37 beta2 and I have problem with installing nvidia drivers.
I installed the kernel sources, but running the nvidia installer gives me an error.
invidia-installer.log says:
ERROR: Unable to load the kernel module 'nvidia.ko'. This happens most ...