Of course, the new ATI driver did not work either. Yes, it installs, yes, it compiles the fglrx module, but trying to insert it still presents an “unable to allocate memory blah-blah” something error.
Naturally the networking did not work after I restarted X with the old config. Network Manager insists on having no active connections, whereas pinging my other systems works like a charm. I took the advice of another frustrated Intrepid user and
$ sudo apt-get remove --purge network-manager
Indeed, the Network Manager Gnome-applet should be classified as “What Was I Thinking?”. I’m starting to wonder if Intrepid shouldn’t be classified the same.