I think, the main problem was, for me, not having v86d installed on the system. Now I can se the graphical/XBMC boot screen , which brought home another problem for me. It always coming too big for the screen, like this:
doesn't matter what resolution I set the the grub config file. This is what I have at the moment:
/etc/default/grub
# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset xbmc=autostart,nodiskmount,setvolume usbcore.autosuspend=-1 loglevel=0 video=uvesafb:mode_option=1280x800-24,mtrr=3,scroll=ywrap"
loglevel=0"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="acpi_enforce_resources=lax"
GRUB_GFXMODE=1280x800
-------------------------------------------------------------
/etc/initramfs-tools/modules
# List of modules that you want to include in your initramfs.
#
uvesafb mode_option=1280x800-24 mtrr=3 scroll=ywrap
-------------------------------------------------------------
and finally
FRAMEBUFFER=y in the
/etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/splash file. Can anyone tell me what possibly am I missing? cheers!!