I'm trying to run vendetta on a Debian Etch system with a Linux 2.6-18 kernel and x.org v 7.1.1...

The game installs without any problems, and i'm able to launch the updater - But when i try to launch the game my X-server crashes with following error message:

Backtrace:
0: /usr/bin/X11/X(xf86SigHandler+0x84) [0x80c4354]
1: [0xb7fc5420]

Fatal server error:
Caught signal 11. Server aborting

This is what i could find in vendetta's errors.log:

[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] Found driver: "ALSA driver". Type 1, Version 8.1. Load @0x083106f0
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] Instantiate address: 0xb7649a40
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] Found driver: "Open Sound System driver". Type 1, Version 8.1. Load @0x08311298
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] Instantiate address: 0xb7567370
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] Found driver: "OpenGL Reference GKGL driver". Type 5, Version 68.0. Load @0x08311518
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] Instantiate address: 0xb753a7f0
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] Note: Didn't find exact match for 800x600x32.
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] Here are the available modes:
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] 0) 1280x1024x24
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] 1) 1024x768x24
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] 2) 1280x1024x24
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] 3) 1280x1024x24
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] 4) 1280x960x24
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] 5) 1280x800x24
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] 6) 1280x768x24
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] 7) 1152x864x24
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] 8) 1152x768x24
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] 9) 1024x768x24
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] 10) 1024x768x24
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] 11) 1024x768x24
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] 12) 960x600x24
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] 13) 832x624x24
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] 14) 800x600x24
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] 15) 800x600x24
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] 16) 800x600x24
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] 17) 800x600x24
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] 18) 800x600x24
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] 19) 800x600x24
[Mon Jan 15 15:23:19 2007] and it picked mode 14

Do other 3d games work?

I have no problems running Enemy-Territory, and only minor bugs when running WC3-TFT and D2 through Cedega - But those are most likely because of the WineX engine

funky...

what hardware are you using? does the game at least switch to full screen mode or something?

maybe change windowmode to 1 in ~/.vendetta/config.ini or disable a few other features

You must add 800x600x32 - modeline to your xorg.conf. See man gf.