How do I cut off my graphical boot screen and use text? I just got an older laptop because my other one died. I put my old hard disk in since I already had it set up and it was bigger than the one in it, and this one supports a graphical boot screen, which unfortunately makes it take an hour to boot, whereas the other one, about the same power level, took only a few minutes to boot. How do I disable the graphical boot screen so I can get it up quicker? Where is that option passed to the kernel? I bet I'll have to pass a video mode from some file.

depends on your distro, but for many (redhat-style), go into /etc/inittab, then edit the line that says something like:

id:5:inittab

change the five to a 3. This sets your init. init 0 is shutdown, init 1 is single user (root/troubleshooting) and won't allow networking), init 3 is textmode, init 5 is graphical, and init 6 is reboot. These can be arbitrary, but a lot of distros follow this format.

I guess that's what I do for Mandrake 9, since it's a RedHat base or clone.

You want the number that corresponds to "Full multiuser mode" in the comments in the default line.

You could also use Mandrake Control Center in the booting area.

Well, changed the wroing thing. Rats!
Something I've noticed: even setting Windows 98 up, this sucker is slooooooooooow. It appears the PnP settings are messed up, so I may not have to mess with this. After 98 is set up, (I need Windows to change my CMOS settings), I'll set that hard disk (I have 3) as a CMOS/Windows disk and the other two as Linux disks. Red Hat 9 don't seem to like a disk under 3GB. Won't boot on my 2GB disk. Will go back and do a minimalist install later though.