Redhat 6 + CodeIgniter 2.0.2 + PHP 5.3.2 + connecting to remote MSSQL 2005 = impossible?

[eluser]Unknown[/eluser]
Getting a blank screen with the settings (real values replaced) below. Using the same settings but running CI on the windows box where the MSSQL db lives with PHP 5.2.8, it worked as expected. I read that MSSQL access methods were deprecated in PHP 5.3+ (http://www.php.net/manual/en/book.mssql.php#89509) Is this the problem? Am I going to have to convince management to convert the MSSQL databases to MySQL databases?

Code:

$db['sql']['hostname'] = 'host';
$db['sql']['username'] = 'user';
$db['sql']['password'] = 'pass';
$db['sql']['database'] = 'dbname';
$db['sql']['dbdriver'] = 'mssql';
$db['sql']['dbprefix'] = '';
$db['sql']['pconnect'] = TRUE;
$db['sql']['db_debug'] = TRUE;
$db['sql']['cache_on'] = FALSE;
$db['sql']['cachedir'] = '';
$db['sql']['char_set'] = 'utf8';
$db['sql']['dbcollat'] = 'utf8_general_ci';
$db['sql']['swap_pre'] = '';
$db['sql']['autoinit'] = TRUE;
$db['sql']['stricton'] = FALSE;