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you didn't answer the very first question!

There is no on-board video. To date, none of the X58 mobos have on-board video.

You haven't got a video card as well as onboard graphics have you? In any case, as hari says, try just a simple VGA monitor, something other than you are using right now. If you see the boot screen menu then unless you have multiple graphics chipsets you should see the rest until just before the AV Wizard. Although it is possible it could be a weird screen pickiness thing!

It is a monitor that has DVI and VGA inputs, and I tried both. The graphics card itself has two DVI outs, both of which I tried, with and without the DVI->VGA adapter. The keyboard keeps getting initialized repeatedly, so perhaps it is trying to find the proper framebuffer mode, or X modeline (don't know if the installer uses an fb or X).

Debian (testing) installed smoothly, and brought up X fine. I assume it is using the free "nv" driver, I'll have to look more closely later.

Sounds like you'll need newer nvidia drivers, see "Display Drivers" in the wiki for info.

The wiki says to install updated drivers using a console, and I'm comfortable doing that. The problem is that I get no display at all at any time. The only LinuxMCE/Kubuntu screen I see is that first one with the 3 options of install, memtest, and boot from hard disk. So I'm not able to install anything; whereas the steps described in the wiki need a running Debian/Kubuntu system.

Popped in the 0710 RC2 DVD for amd64 and fired the box up. Gave me the Kubuntu splash screen, I selected the install option, screen blanks, stays blank. The mobo LED readout appears to be cycling through the hardware initialization and transferring control to the OS. Maybe it is continuously rebooting - don't know 'cause I can't see anything. Tried using the DVI->VGA adapter, went through the number keys... nothing.

Hardware is Biostar TPower X58 with Core i7 920, and EVGA 9800GTX+. Is this too new for LinuxMCE?

Ah well, will try my usual Debian with MythTV now.