Working on getting a new computer working, and thought I'd put Kubuntu on it to check it out. Currently using Fedora Core 4, about time to upgrade to something, and I've read good things about Ubuntu.

First problem, how do I get it to do a non-graphical, text only, boot to the command line, where I can then login and type 'startx' to have it start kde? Likewise, when it shuts down, I want to see all the system messages scrolling by to the end.

In Fedora (Core 4 anyway), you set a value in inittab to 3 to boot non-graphical to the command line, but there is no inittab to be found in Kubuntu 7.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

You need to do something like
If you use Kubuntu, replace gdm with kdm in the command above.

Thanks, that got me part of the way there. It still does the graphical boot/shutdown, but it does drop me at the command line after boot. I should probably check the grub configuration in case it's responsible for hiding the boot/shutdown messages.

Thanks again.