Ubuntu :: 10.10 Maverick Startupmanager Not Launching?

I have installed Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat onto a USB stick. Booting up is fun but it does come up with a load of text and a blue menu screen that hangs around for 5 seconds and then loads up ok.

My challenge is to somehow customise the boot up process. For one I'd like to customise the options that are presented on the initial blue menu boot up screen and possibly to not show the back ground text that presents during the start up process.

I've googles about a bit and am aware that I need to be using startupmanager as the GUI customisation tool of choice. The trouble is that after installation startupmanager doesn't launch.

This is what I've done so far:

1. gone to [URL] and downloaded the startupmanager (1.9.13-5) version of the package.

2. gone to [URL] and downloaded the menu 2.1.44ubuntu1 as looking at the the pre-requisites for startupmanager this was the only one not already installed.

3. from a terminal window executed sudo dpkg -i <the previously downloaded startupmanager package>

4. from a terminal window executed sudo dpkg -i <the previously downloaded menu package>

5. Tried to launch it from the systemadministration menu. Nothing obvious happened.

6. Created a shortcut of the startupmanager shortcut on the desktop and viewed the properties.

7. opened up a terminal windows and launch command su-to-root -X -c /usr/sbin/startupmanager which was originall shown within the startupmanager properties of the shortcut.

From this last terminal command I get the output as follows:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ su-to-root -X -c /usr/sbin/startupmanager
Grub2 detected
Usplash not detected
Splashy not detected

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