Hello,

> I can live with the fact that the computer runs headless once its  
> configured, though having to use vi for the first steps makes things  
> a lot harder. Also, having to use zTerm under Classic over a USB  
> serial adapter is making things a lot harder. Flaky as hell.

I wonder what's wrong with your graphics board - it was something
mach64-based, wasn't it? It /should/ work. Please check if you really
used the right path ( leave out the @xxx parts, something like
/bandit/ATY,xxx should do it ), make sure you get all the capitals
right, OF is picky as hell. Then check if you used the right devalias
for the keyboard ( the devalias command should list them, the keyboard
should be 'kbd' or 'keyboard'. OF will fall back to ttya for both input
and output when one doesn't work )
There are a few graphics board with broken firmware which don't work as
OF console ( most Matrox Millennium I and II for instance ) - if you
have the chance try to update the card's firmware or try a different
one. From personal experience I can tell that most IMS and 3Dfx boards
work just fine as console, although X on IMS will be tricky ( don't have
the card anymore, the XFree driver is still beta and probably full of
PCisms ) and X on a voodoo3 requires -current.

have fun
Michael