Booting LiveCD Without X
LiveCD environments can usually be helpful for testing, but if you're troubleshooting a problem where X does not start up, that makes it difficult to retrieve the log files and other such things. But it can be done:
0. Obtain a Live CD for the release you're testing: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/
1. At the CD boot menu, add "text" to the boot options: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootParameters
2. The CD will now boot but not start X.
3. You can grab xrandr data without starting an X session like this:
xinit -e 'sh -c "xrandr --verbose > xrandr.txt" '
This will try to start X and log some information about the active screen resolution to the file xrandr.log before it stops X again.
4. Start up an X session like this:
startx
or
/usr/X11R6/bin/X :0
