Thanks to all who replied with the /dev/fb0 permissions suggestions, I was able to get X working by fixing these permissions.
There were suggestions that this should be included in a FAQ. I thought for the sake of reference I should mention that the first place I looked was the release-notes at http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/sparc/release-notes/index perhaps this info belongs in there? Is the maintainer of these notes subscribed? Also thanks to the person who suggested installing xfonts-base to correct the font errors I was getting. Unfortunately, I have that package already installed, so this is not the problem, but I am not worried about these messages as X still works as expected anyway. I appreciate the great advice! -Dano
