Tim:
What are you going to do when serial ports disappear from motherboards?
Chris Mohler:
Weep!
Andras Simon:
No! Curse! Much more efficient! :-)
Or, as a last resort, get a usb->serial port converter.
BTW, I'm only advocating this approach, not using it myself. I don't remember having a lockup since I last tried to use NVidia's driver. But then I'm not using Gnome or KDE, just a trusty old fvwm (1.24r).
I was serious in asking it. While I haven't done the serial console trick, I see the purpose of it, and the need to be able to do such things. I don't know if a USB-serial doodah would be useful in the situations where you might use a serial console, you mightn't have anything available to drive it.