Today my Ubuntu Mate 16.04 box did not boot to the desktop and I spent too much time finding the reason. I found that my network was not working which causes Ubuntu Mate 16.04 Alpha2 to show the animated Mate logo without doing anything else.
Is it possible to switch to a more verbose boot mode to see what is going on during boot ?
Is there any hot-key to show where the computer has troubles during boot ?
This may be what you want.
We also have systctl that may show what failed. Run this code in terminal:
systemctl
Or maybe systemd--analyze will show something. Code:
systemd-analyze blame
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You can temporarily change the boot parameters before loading Ubuntu MATE.
- Hold SHIFT during boot to reveal the GRUB menu (if it’s the only OS installed)
- Highlight "Ubuntu MATE 16.04 … " and press e.
- At the end of the
linuxline, delete thequietandsplashwords, then press CTRL+X or F10 to boot.
Now when Ubuntu MATE “freezes” up during boot (most likely waiting for network before timing out), you will see a lot of useful information to help research and diagnose the problem.
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On my box the GRUB menu did not show up when holding shift.
So I installed the Ubuntu package boot-repair from a PPA which solved this issue.
The boot-repair software changed the grub config and afterwards I could see the GRUB menu and choose between several options.
Now I can choose recovery mode from the GRUB menu which is more verbose.
Boot-repair is an excellent package, good choice 
Avoiding the terminal tip: In the live session for Ubuntu MATE 16.04 Alpha 2 and newer, you can also install boot-repair from the Welcome program. 
It's under "Installation Guide" → "Dual Booting".
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