I have NOT installed ubuntu, and I want to; the guidelines on the website suggest that when I boot from the USB I get some kind of a GUI which guides me through setup; however, what I get is a black terminal screen. What is going wrong here?
I have ubuntu-14.10-desktop-amd64.iso on my formatted USB.
The process of putting an iso on a usb drive is a bit more complicated than just putting the iso on the drive. I recommend you used the universal usb installer if you're installing from windows. It should work nicely with the iso file you already have so be sure you have that on your hard drive before you format the usb drive.
Other good methods are listed here.
