The triple blink reminds me of back when I used ATI's proprietary video card driver, compiled from source. Every time I would upgrade the Linux kernel and rebo

The triple blink reminds me of back when I used ATI's proprietary video card driver, compiled from source. Every time I would upgrade the Linux kernel and reboot, X* wouldn't start (it would try three times and fail, kicking me back to a TTY login). I think the reason is because closed-source code can only link to the Linux kernel dynamically in order to be compatible with the GPL license, so the kernel updates would break the linking. *I use X as a nebulous reference to anything related to Linux graphics as I still haven't taken the time to see how all the pieces fit together.