Step 6, or how to boot into single user mode on a nslu2

["Jeffrey B. Green" <jeff@kikisoso.org>]

I have a couple of slugs both running debian arm and am now very much 
aware of the fact that squeeze has dropped arm from the distributions in 
favor of armel. The only migration procedure that I have discovered so 
far is the one on the ArmEabiHowto, e.g. the section "Migrating arm 
installation to arm EABI installation". Althought the procedure is more 
of a "re-install" approach, which is okay I suppose, the rough point in 
the procedure is step 6 where it says:

6 boot into single user mode and make sure there is no processess running

So far, I not found a clear description of that step. I have found 
descritpions for the LEDs indicating single user mode, and I've found 
for bsd systems an rc file setting to force single user mode, but 
nothing straightforward for debian (and possibly linux) systems. I see 
where I can muck around with the boot parameters, however I also see 
many places where my experimentation might go afoul. Invariably I do 
recover from my nslu2s becoming "non-communicative" however it also 
invariably does cost me some time and downtime.

So could someone elaborate on step 6 for myself and others, possibly 
here and on the wiki. (Maybe making the phrase "boot into single user 
mode" a hotlink to a procedure to do such a thing.)

thanks to all who help keep these things going,
-jeff