computer starts with grub after installation - what should I do

thanks so much tommylight
this seems to be a great forum!
will now familiarize myself with the distro, but have to wait for my Mesa boards before I can really get started

You are welcomed, always.
There are plenty of simulated configs included, so you can start and use them with no hardware attached.
Also open the configuration files with a text editor and look at how things go there, this was the most important thing for me when i used LinuxCNC for the first time, editing a simple text file to modify everything!