Booting debian standalone?

[Dan Coutu]

Well, in my efforts to add more functionality to a debian server that 
used a textual login by
adding windows packages I seem to have managed to wedge it good. :-(

I used apt-get to install gdm. It detected that I needed additional 
packages and pulled those
in too. Unfortunately now when the system boots the last thing it says 
is that it is starting up
the gdm (Gnome Display Manager). Then it wedges so bad it won't respond 
to pings.
The console is completely unresponsive.

I see that when rebooting I get a 5 second window to hit Enter and get a 
shell. But it
is a very lightweight shell with next to nothing for commands available. 
I have to use
echo just to get a directory listing! Can I at this point get the system 
to come up in single
user mode? There seems to be no lilo or grub on the thing.

I believe that I need to find a way to either disable the startup of gdm 
or else install more
packages so that it will actually work. Any clues are sincerely welcome!

Thanks a ton,

Dan