How do you monitor startup messages in Ubuntu?

[Derek Broughton]

Paul Johnson wrote:

> Thanks for your feedback, but I think the answers are off the mark.
> So far, the best option is to edit menu.lst so that all startup
> messages show all the time to all users.  That's a bit ugly, but there
> are compromises in life.

Whose "best" option?  It's just one of many.
> 
> Its not a very good solution for people who don't want to read startup
> messages, however.  In a computer lab setting (with Fedora, at least),
> I can lock down grub, the bios, and users can still come in,
> experience problems, and restart and hit the button that says "show
> details".

And you could set it up that way for them, too. 
> 
> The Ubuntu alternative seems to be either
> 
> 1) I give everybody permission to act as root so they can edit the
> boot menu (either interactively or in /etc/boot/menu.lst), or

Er, actually, it doesn't matter whether they have permission.  if they're
booting, they can modify the boot options, unless you lock down grub (the
same way as in fedora).
> 
> 2) Teach users a secret handshake, er, combination of secret
> keystrokes, to read the error messages.

blah, blah, blah.  Sorry if I _seem_ dismissive, but most people _don't_
want to see messages, and wouldn't know what they meant if they did.  If
they want to know, the options are there and pretty simple to learn.  If
you _want_ users to have the option, just give them a "Boot wth splash"
menu entry, and a "Boot with messages" option.
-- 
derek