well folks,
It turns out the vid crash problem was the result of some experiemental
code built into the kernel (framebuffer support for permedia 2). I have
since
turned off permedia 2 support (by disabling framebuffer support) and the

problem has ceased.

Q: Is there a newer version of this framebuffering support for the linux
kernel
that is more stable. Also, I upgraded to the latest kernel (from
kernel.org)
and am now running 2.2.17 flawlessly.

Hawke