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

[Chris Green]

On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 11:42:15PM +0200, Ioannis Vranos wrote:
> > 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.
> 
> You do not need to remove anything.
> 
> Just edit /etc/default/grub and replace:
> 
> GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
> 
> with: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=""
> 
> 
> Save the changes, and then run update-grub as root.
> 
... and this does improve things slightly but it's still far from the
way it used to be.

When I boot I see the BIOS screen as expected then the grub menu.

I then get a blank screen for 20 seconds or so followed by a momentary
display of all the stuff that should have been scrolling by during those
20 seconds and then the GUI login screen.

It's no use at all for seeing where any delays are, or even being able
to read any messages during the boot process.

This is as seen on my laptop but it's just about the same on other
systems booting various versions of Ubuntu, there is no easy way to
actually watch the boot process any more.

-- 
Chris Green