I'm having trouble with Debian fowling up with X when use Ctrl-Alt-Fx to switch to another terminal (out of X). I can hit, say, Ctrl-Alt-F1 to go to a terminal and do whatever I want, but when I hit Ctrl-Alt-F7, or even if I log out of X-KDE and X restarts, the screen comes up in the proper resolution, but it stays black. Why is this and how do I make it come up properly?

the only thing taht comes to my mind like that, was something like i was usuing a video driver as a module in the kernel, but didnt have module unloading enabled, so when i killed the x server and tryed to bring it back up, it was like xorg tried to start the module again, then i had nothing but a black screen, you could check that, but it was fixed witht he next release of xorg.. but debian uses an old xfree right.,.... i dont know.... what video card are you using.... and you could look at the /var/log/Xorg.0.log and see what happenes at the tail...... and i realize this is one bag runon sentance....

i think that was right, at least. it is like haveing rivafb on, then installing an nvidia driver.... the framebuffer driver just overules the nvidia driver.

I'm using an embedded Intel Extreme Graphics driver. I initially tried to use an ATI card, but Debian absolutely refused to use it (I had to remove it and reinstall clean). ...and yes, Debian can use X 3.3, but normally uses X 4. Is there a newer X?

it is just that xfree hasnt been updated in a long time, at least to my knowledge, and everyone has switched to xorg.... it is the same, but updated often.. and that makes it faster.

What would it take to change over to X-org from XF86? Can I just install a .deb and it be done? ...or do I have to pull out one thing and then adjust someting else before I seat the new one in?

I've been having a similar problem upgrading from sarge to etch(xfree86 to xorg). When it gets to gdm(kdm wasn't working) I can do a 'ctrl-alt-F1' and it works, but trying to go back('ctrl-alt-F7') gives me about 1/3 black screen, the rest of the gdm(or icewm) screen, and freezes.

Is etch another version of Debian? The latest I saw was Sarge.

etch is the testing version(read, not the official release). There are actually three branches of debian
Stable(Sarge)
Testing(Etch)
Unstable(SID**Note**unstable is always sid, even when the others change)
Stable is geared towards people who have mission critical applications, or just want a stable OS. Testing is the branch where the packages have some degree of testing, but are not stable enough for stable. Unstable is where all the newest packages are, and things are broken from time to time.

When in the text screen, try

lsmod|grep <modulename> where modulename is the name of your graphics driver module.

If nothing comes up do: modprobe <modulename>

If this works, insert the modulename into /etc/modules.

It could be that the module is being unloaded when you switch screens.

I'm pretty sure I got my driver built in...I'll have to check though.

yeah, my driver is built in to my kernel.

I'm not anywhere being adept at Linux, so I am unsure of what you mean by the modulename of the graphics driver. Do you mean "X-Free 86" or whatever it is identified as? ...or you talking about a specific driver (framebuffer, ATI, etc.)? I'm not sure of what any of them are actually called either.

I found my problem--it was an interaction between my wireless network card and my graphics card. Upon removing my wireless network card (that never worked under any Linux I've tried anyway) and installing a Mercury TV card and an ATI graphics card, I switched it on and it worked flawlessly! I'm pretty happy now.