More info on non-booting 2.5.69/2.5.70

[William McDonald Buck]

I'm not subscribed, but read everything I could find here on non-booting 2.5 kernels, and with help from list archives found and fixed my problems. 
Had the problem others have reported -- hang after unpacking the kernel, blank screen. 
Advice given here, and in "what to expect" document is to ensure one has set CONFIG_INPUT=y, CONFIG_VT=Y and CONFIG_VT_CONSOLE=Y (and sometimes says to set CONFIG_HW_CONSOLE=y). The advice does not say -- and I think should and must -- to set CONFIG_VGA_CONSOLE=y. 
This is empirical. I could not boot 2.5. I followed all suggestions, reset ACPI, set NOAPIC (which I have to do anyway with my SiS chipset) everything else suggested. No dice. Finally had to set up a serial console, and realized I needed this. 
BTW, although the new xconfig is nice, it is counter-intuitive to me that a setting under "graphics support" is essential to be able to boot (at least in my case). Maybe this is obvious to everyone else. 

Would appreciate being cc-ed on discussion since I'm not subscribed to the list.