i have a compaq armada with debian installedx runs fine, but i when i switch to a virtual terminal ctrl alt f1, ctrl alt f2, etc , i get colored stripes down the screen, its just a mess. is this anything to do with my X settings? surely not? is there any setting that changes how the virtual terminals are displayed?
I have a compaq armada (M700) which works fine with virtual terminals. I installed debian from the Knoppix 3.3 cd onto the harddrive and everything seems to work with the default settings. The install uses the framebuffer for the virtual terminals, so perhaps you could check if you setup is using the framebuffer or vga/svga.
Johnny.