[hollerith]

>Does anyone know if you can boot Plan 9 in text mode?

It is very unlikely that you can use Plan 9 with the video card literally in text mode.

>When I tried to run Plan 9 in a VM I gave up because I couldn't figure out how to open a shell in the window manager and type ls.

You can probably learn how by reading the first few paragraphs of this page:

http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/Using_rio/index.html

[jacquesm]

Such barriers to entry certainly don't help. Compatibility with potential users is a good thing.

[Dewie]

> Such barriers to entry

Reading a manual/tutorial?

[sp332]

Hiding all the menus. There should be visible buttons or menus to bring up all the functionality.