We used the XM V3 for the CARD demo last year.
The instructions at
http://www.elinux.org/BeagleBoardUbu...nfigured_Image are complete and worked for us.
This will get you a text console out the serial and HDMI. Once you have this you can install a desktop manager to get the full GUI. However, you may be better off without the desktop manager, since they use a lot of resources.