How can I manage to boot my laptop into a Desktop display, instead of bash?

I'm don't know what "loaded" means. Did you install Ubuntu from the DVD onto the PC's hard drive and then boot from the hard drive? Or are you booting from the DVD?

One of the reasons that Ubuntu catapulted itself to the number one Linux distro (for a while) is that it's easy to install and use. By default it installs the X-window graphical display system and a desktop, and it starts them up by default on boot. It sounds like X isn't starting or it failed to start or maybe it wasn't installed.

Is the laptop very old? Maybe it doesn't have enough RAM or disk space or an adequate graphics capability. If X tried to start but failed, you should find an error message in /var/log/Xorg.0.log.

The Xorg log shows VESA(0): initialising int 10 VESA(0): V_BIOS address 0x0 out of range . . . Unloading vbe Screens found, but none have a usable configuration. Fatal server error: no screens

This typically indicates a driver issue (or some type of incompatibility with your video card). Either your card isn't being auto-detected properly, or the drivers that come with that distribution of Ubuntu have a problem detecting the video in your "very new" laptop. Or you've tried manually configuring the video driver and it's not correct enough to work.

Auto-detection normally works pretty well these days with most distros, and I haven't had to edit an xorg.conf file in several years. But you can either try editing the X config file manually or try a couple other distros. Maybe Ubuntu 13.10?

Those aren't your only options, but that's all I could say off the top of my head, for I am no expert.

When you're at the terminal prompt, have you been able to set up your Internet (in order to run 'apt-get' to upgrade to the latest software in the Ubuntu repo)?

It seems you have selected "Basic Server" option during installation process. Select Desktop/X windowing system.

Or

Install X- Windowing system packeage from your repository using YUM command.