I'm a newbie, running the box 2.4.29 kernel, slack 10.1. my problem is i can't stop x and get back to a console to shutdown my computer. I've tried ctrl-alt- bckspce, ctrl-alt-F6, F5...etc. I' also tried using the login manager ie exit, logout. I' ve tried switching window managers and every time I get the same result which is a blackscreen. I had the opposite problem when I first installed, all I got in the beginning was blackscreen. My computer doesn't freeze it just goes black. I can still ctrl-alt-del to shutdown but I'd like to see it happen. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Where do I check for error messages. I looked through the forums for a similar problem without luck. This is my first post, usually I find an answer in thee forums, thanks in advance.

have you tried changing /etc/initab to 3 ? Do a reboot after the change

http://www.slackbook.org/html/x-window-system-xdm.html

/etc/inittab is set to 3, any other suggestions please?

You don't need to go out of X to shutdown, just open a xterm (or Eterm, aterm, Konsole, gnome-terminal, whatever you use) and run the command.
I've had those problems when using framebuffer in text-mode, which lead me to a lot of screen crashes, you can disable it setting vga=normal in LILO.

in /etc/X11/xorg.conf
in Section "Server Flags" add the line
Option "HandleSpecialKeys" "always"

I added the handlespecialkeys option and the same thing happened. I checked vga=normal and it is the current setting. I have shutdown from Eterm and I get recursive a shutdown line that "crashes to a blank terminal that I can't see to read. It's a little frustrating. If I use the shutdown -h command I can't see if it happens so I'm stuck with reboot, that way I at know slack has shutdown. It would be a lot easier if I could read it. I prefer not to boot into init 4, if anyone else has had this problem I would love to hear from you.

You might try just killing it if it's really so important.

killall X
or
killall gdm-binary
or whatever applies to you

Maybe you configured vga=normal in LILO but didn't update lilo after that. Run as root: /sbin/lilo -v
That should update LILO, hopefully you'll reboot and see the console.
You could also try using a different driver for X like the generic vesa and see if your console crashes or not with it, maybe it's a driver issue.

Are you using the NVIDIA vidio drivers???

If you are,your system isn't crashing,your monitor is shuting off because of no signal. I'm having the same problem and I've learned to type "in the dark" after closing out the KDE desktop. From there everything is typed "in the dark". I just wait a second or two before I type the next entry. It's a pain,but it works for me.....

Just a thought...
My two cents.......
and all that other good stuff....

I use the nVidia drivers for my GeForce FX5200 and don't have these problems, though I don't know what to suggest to fix it.

ctrl-alt- backspace can not back to console,it will back to gdm/xdm
If you want to back to console,you can start a term ,such as "xterm" ,and input "init 3"

nutbag, could you post the output with lsmod ?