Getting Rid of Ubuntu's Boot-up Splash Screen

Either edit your /boot/grub/menu.lst file as root or use sudo edit. Remove (or uncomment) instances of quiet and splash.

To uncomment, insert a # just before the splash. The following is a sample of a menu.lst file with splash uncommented:

title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.17-10-generic
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.17-10-generic
root=UUID=3830dc6c-4b68-446c-b2ab-44a31b051c63 ro
#splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.17-10-generic
savedefault
boot

If you would like this to be permanent, specify # defoptions=nosplash.