I did a debian 'aptitude full-upgrade', and now i can hardly read the virtual consoles any more: their brightness is reduced to near darkness.
The X screen (gnome) is still allright.

This is my environment:
Motherboard Neo-V 848P with Intel P4,
Video: Radeon RX9250,
Distribution: debian lenny/sid (testing/unstable),
Gnome 2.22.2
Kernel 2.6.24-1-686, but the problem occurred before the update from 2.6.21.2-686.
lcpci:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82865G/PE/P DRAM Controller/Host-Hub Interface (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82865G/PE/P PCI to AGP Controller (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev c2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV280 [Radeon 9200 PRO] (rev 01)
01:00.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV280 [Radeon 9200 PRO] (Secondary) (rev 01)
02:0b.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)

Any suggestions about where to start seeking are very welcome, as I can only read my virtual consoles 1-6 at night

KlaasJan

Just a query for you, and it may sound silly, but would u have any laptop packages installed? Just wondering if the system may think that when no "battery"is detected it will dim the display.....

Just throwing an idea out there.

It is not silly, I think. Some program seems to think that something is wrong with the power consumption, and laptop-programs look like prime suspects. But which program ? I certainly did not consciously install something like it. Thanks for directing my thoughts.
KlaasJan

Run tasksel and see if laptop is ticked, If it isnt, i would just use kpackage, select installed packages and then search for laptop or power saving and see what happens....
Im just guessing here...
But it would be the first thing i would look at.
DJ

Solved, brightness is back. The culprit was an obsolete kernel option vga=0x311. Your comments started a long search, checking everything. Thanks. KlaasJan.