Can you open a terminal while Ubuntu is installing? I remember in the old days when I could install Linux and hit like F-12 or something and see the installation log and in the really old days of Debian I could hit F1, F2, etc and get different terminals while the install was occurring. Is this possible in Ubuntu?
As I remember you can click the arrow in the down left hand corner, next to "Installing system".
You can see it here: