Xorg not starting on old ATI card

[neoire]

I've just installed Fedora on a computer at a lab that I work in, but Xorg won't start.

The card is ATI Rage 128 AGP (this box is old. real old. so old that installation took 1.5 hours). lspci says that it's on bus "0:10.0" with driver "aty128fb"

First problem was that X won't detect it, and when I ran "X -configure" the generated xorg.conf has bus ID "0:16:0" (hex - decimal conversion?), and X is happy with this ID.

So now that X can detect the card, the next error (which is the one I'm currently stuck on) is that X refuses to use the frame buffer. Under my /dev, there's /dev/fb, and /dev/fb0 symlinked to it. In the log, X tried to look for files /dev/fb1 through /dev/fb9, and gave errors files not found, then gives error no valid frame buffer found, and exits. I tried to symlink /dev/fb1 to /dev/fb as well, then the file not found errors only range from /dev/fb2 through /dev/fb9. So apparently X does see the frame buffer file, but doesn't think it can be used?

Any tips as to where/what I should look?

thanks,
neoire

PS. Sorry I can't post original outputs from the box. That machine doesn't have network access.

[JohnVV]

I am assuming it is fedora 9 you installed .If so there IS NO driver for that old ati card that will work with the new xorg in fedora 9 . downgrade fedora9's xorg to the one in fedora 8 , see :
Fedora 9 (F9) and ATI ( fglrx ) with working OpenGL!
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=189227
PS. there is no fedora8.repo at that address anymore you will need to make one
-------
for the new ati cards ,the NEW ati driver will work with the new xorg .