Comment 3 for bug 258469

I wasn't able to try this again until now, since I had limited time in the machine room and I had trouble netbooting a livecd.
(see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/+bug/268005...)

 This bug doesn't seem to be present on this hardware anymore in the i386 Hardy alpha5 livecd. I've booted i386 Hardy alpha5 without compiz problems on a machine with a NVidia 7600GT AGP, too. (nice UI for suggesting the non-free drivers for desktop-effects, BTW.)

On the Dell PE1950 (ATI ES1000):
$ xdriinfo driver 0
Xlib: extension "XFree86-DRI" missing on display ":0.0".
Screen "0" is not direct rendering capable.

 and indeed, xdpyinfo doesn't show XFree86-DRI among the loaded extensions. Even though Xorg.0.log has a line that says "(II) Loading extension XFree86-DRI". It does still have all the stuff about setting up the swrast dri provider, though.

glxinfo says "direct rendering: Yes" (Mesa Project Software Rasterizer), just like on my NVidia desktop. The SGI-GLX extension is present.

 I booted Intrepid i386 alpha4 again, and the gray-screen bug is still there. It shows the same thing for xdriinfo, and XFree86-DRI is not present.

 I can easily boot Intrepid with nfsroot now. Actually, I'll just leave it running on perun03 until I make some more progress cloning my Ubuntu server install onto the rest of the nodes. So now's a great time to ask me for any info...
Do you need the Xorg.0.log from alpha5? I didn't see any diffs that looked important...