I D/Led X and installed it without fully reading the FAQ.
When X bombed I *then* read the FAQ and saw that my problem
is that I don't have a working grf device (no lines starting with
'grf:' when booting).

As I also got current kernel source and was able to build a
kernel, I'm interested in getting X to work. What I'm looking
for is some sort of tips as to what might need to be done. I
have browsed through the source a bit and I plan to dig into
it some more, but some guidance might be helpful.

The other stuff is that I sure am glad now that I compiled a
kernel with a white-on-black console and a better character set.
Now my eyes don't hurt so much...