stuck at X config (I think)

[Mark B Schonfeld <mschonfeld at bellsouth dot net>]

I went through all the steps to install the ati drivers yet at the end
whenever I restart X it fails and I'm stuck without a working X.  When I
run dexconfig I get back to my default using the vesa driver, but as for
the ATI drivers, I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

I did not use the prebuilt .deb's.  I built it from source, although I
should let it be known that this was my first attempt at doing so.  I am
using Debian testing with X 4.3.0 and kernel 2.6.8-1-386.

I installed the kernel-source, as well as all of the tools needed for
the job as specified on the web-page.  I am using debhelper 4.2.21.

When I get through to the end of installing the module and I run
modprobe fglrx, I don't get an error which I suppose means it worked,
but then when I modified my XF86Config-4 file with the edits specified
and restarted X (I used CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE, not sure if that's ok since
some reading suggests it's not totally safe) it just doesn't work.  I
also tried running fglrxconfig, but that too seems to not fix the
situation.  When I run startx, it fails.

I should also mention that I used the make-kpkg method to install the
module.

I want to be able to share the error message but I don't know how.

Any help is appreciated.  Thank you.

Mark