Oh...its good to see that it has worked with you. I had a lotta trouble with the 2.6.8 Kernel on Debian Sarge 3.1r0 and that video card.
Well..but here I am a bit confused. The 2.6.8 kernel doesn't even have the
module required for this video card. I wonder how could you do that when its not there! The 2.6.8 has the PROSavage module, which I tried with this video card, but it did not work. You sure you are using the exact same card as the OP?
True. I had serious trouble with that card too, but never said there was a kernel module to use for. I first used a Knoppix live cd to see how it did the trick: frame buffer device. I just recompiled the kernel adding the necessary modules or simply loaded them... dont't remember exactly, it was a couple of years ago but it was a nightmare. After that, I simply continued to run "apt-get update && apt-get upgrade" regularly, being very careful to not broke something when migrating to Xorg when entered in testing. I was very surprised for that, but unfortunately I blowed out my old X11 directory after Xorg took place without any troubles, so I can't post my old xfree86 conf but I am sure I did it with a frame buffer device like Knoppix did. PS: When the Kernel itself doesn't support something, I guess we have to
simply switch over to a newer kernel version. (or if the earlier kernel versions had it, then probably downgrade) But I don't think it is possible when the kernel doesn't support something, external modules can be added to it, and that specific thing can be made to work. Correct me if I am wrong.
I am not able to reply (I am not a geek :-( ) but I remember graphics cards can use fbdev a kind of "last chance driver" when specific drivers are unavailable. --
Regards, Amit.
cheers raffaele