I am using Fedora Core 5 with GNOME 2.14. I can't find any options for shutting down X and going just to console. There used to be an option for this in older distributions, just as in Windows you could just down to DOS. I can switch to the console (CTRL+ALT+F#), but X is still open and usually I need to use the console at times when X should not be running. There should be an option for going to the console in GDM for this, but I don't see it. The only way I know, is to disable logging into X at startup, then to restart the computer, but since I don't use the console all the time, I don't want something to permanent. How do I accomplish this?

ctrl-alt-backspace usually does the trick for me.

you can also change to runlevel three using init.
http://osweekly.com/index.php?option...235&Itemid=449

I wonder what would happen with killall X?

Do the Ctrl+Alt+F1 to F6, log in as root (or if possible with your normal user account) then do;

sudo /sbin/init 3

to reactivate X do; sudo /sbin/init 5