How can I get a simple, straightforward, non-GUI login sequence with no waits?

[Chris Green]

Once upon a time when I booted my linux box I watched a load of text
flow past, got a login, logged in, ran startx and it all worked,
quickly!

Now when I boot my linux box (well, any one of several actually) I see
*nothing* between the BIOS screen and the pretty (?) lubuntu/xubuntu
screen asking me to log in.  Increasingly I'm seeing *long* delays on
the way as Network Manager and Plymouth between them waste my time
waiting for networks to configure themselves (or not).  On my laptop in
particular it's getting steadily worse as I alternate regularly between
wired and WiFi network connections and the system really doesn't cope
with this well.

I have tried to tell grub to tell me what's happenning as it goes but it
appears incapable of working on any of my systems, I just get a blank
screen during boot whatever I do.

Can I remove all of the plymouth junk and as a result get a text only
login sequence or is there more to it than that?  I have already removed
Network Manager and replaced it with wicd which has made some things
work better.


-- 
Chris Green