Edgy: blank screen between grub menu and X server

Binary package hint: usplash

I have dist-upgraded from dapper to edgy. Now nothing appears on screen at boot time between the grub menu and the X server.

I have a GeForce2 MX/MX 400 video card, and I am using the x.org driver, not nvidia's binary. My monitor is an LCD one of 1600 x 1200 res, with an analogue connection. (I boot with vga=0x315 to set the tty res to 800x600, and the monitor switches to this res until X starts.)

I have usplash and usplash-theme-ubuntu installed.

If I do a update-grub, it says "Searching for splash image ... none found, skipping ..."

However:
richard@banana:~$ ls -l /etc/alternatives/usplash*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 40 2006-10-26 16:08 /etc/alternatives/usplash-artwork.so -> /usr/lib/usplash/usplash-theme-ubuntu.so
richard@banana:~$ ls -l /usr/lib/usplash/
total 2588
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 36 2006-10-26 16:08 usplash-artwork.so -> /etc/alternatives/usplash-artwork.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2643804 2006-10-25 13:40 usplash-theme-ubuntu.so
richard@banana:~$

Any help greatly appreciated. TIA.