[networked]

>It seems that Ubutu even on servers starts some high-res console or does other stuff that causes a black screen during boot. It requires fiddling with alt-fx keys to get a console.

That sounds like it might be a side effect of kernel mode setting and/or splash screens. You can try to disable both by changing

    GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash <possibly some other things>" 

to

    GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="nomodeset <possibly some other things>"

in /etc/default/grub and see if it still happens.

Edit: I'm assuming you're using Ubuntu Server or Minimal CD.

[louwrentius]

Yes thanks, I recall this works, but I don't like the mindset of having this stuff on a server-edition of your OS to begin with.