i'm trying to find out how to read the checklist that runs when my computer boots. i've looked at dmesg. i've also looked in /var/log. there are two files: boot and bootstrap.txt. /var/log/boot says "(nothing has been logged yet)" and /var/log/bootstrap.txt shows a bunch of files that are loaded. i'm looking for something that shows something like the following:

avahi [yes]
firestarter [failed]
ntfs-g [yes]

i don't know exactly what shows in the list because i only see a moment of it, much too fast for me to read, but i have seen a red "[failed]" and want to figure out what's failing.

type
dmesg | less

Bootlogd is the usual answer, but has been disabled by the Ubuntu devs - see here.