Hey Alan!

 AI> Aside from that I think there's a pretty good chance it would work
 AI> with the nouveau driver that I am using now.

If you are now getting boot penguins on there then for sure mplayer will cooperate with the fbdev2 video output that should now associate with the kernel's nouveau driver that you are now using.  You are pretty well much there whether or not you are aware of exactly where you are.

Life is good,
Maurice

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