A very easy work-around is to append "vga=795" as a kernel parameter in /boot/grub/menu.lst, e.g. in the line directly after "...ro quiet splash" if you have a 1280x1024 display. Take an appropriate other value for a different screen resolution (773 for 1024x768). This enables the frame buffer mode for the mga driver. Unfortunately, this hack does not activate 3D graphics (mga_hal or something like that).
This has been tested on a Matrox G450 card and allows you a reasonable "xvideo" output in VLC. I hope that a new, fixed package "xserver-xorg-video-mga" will be available soon. -- Edgy upgrade breaks multiple Matrox cards https://launchpad.net/bugs/58721 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs