1) Inspiron 2600 using that very finicky I810 chipset from Intel for the video.
(Apologize for forgetting that - I shouldnt have posted at 2 in the morning lol)

2) I'll go ahead and try that vesa driver at 640.
Tried now.. It didn't go - same problem - no suitable X-Server. =/

I got Knoppix to go ahead and load completely with the following command line

knoppix lang=us xserver=XF86_SVGA xmodule=vesa noscsi noagp

however the screen resolution is so small as to prevent any real use.

(If I miss something really obvious, don't leave it out... I'm almost a complete Knoppix/Linux noob. =/)

Also, I don't know if it's useful, but every time I boot, I get the message

You passed an undefined mode number.
Press <RETURN> to see video modes available. <SPACE> to continue or wait 30 secs.

I'm not sure what to do here =/