Comment 10 for bug 188764

Tracing this issue a little further, look at the usplash postinst. This is the code that is called to choose that value:

# Write a config file
setup_usplash_config()
{
        if [ ! -f /etc/usplash.conf ]; then
                db_version 2.0
                if db_get xserver-xorg/config/display/modes; then
                        FIRSTVAL=`echo $RET | sed 's/,.*//'`
                        x=`echo $FIRSTVAL | sed 's/x.*//'`
                        y=`echo $FIRSTVAL | sed 's/.*x//'`
                else
                        x=640
                        y=480
                fi
                echo "# Usplash configuration file" >/etc/usplash.conf
                echo "xres=$x" >>/etc/usplash.conf
                echo "yres=$y" >>/etc/usplash.conf
        fi
}

On my two hardy systems, I dont see anything in that debconf variable. A new method needs to be developed for determining the values to use for X & Y:

supermario@portablemario:~/usplash-0.5.16$ echo "get xserver-xorg/config/display/modes" | sudo debconf-communicate
10 xserver-xorg/config/display/modes doesn't exist