A big hello to the Linux community.

I am a Linux newbie and would just like to say that I am very impressed with Linux (Ubuntu particularly) although I have had some minor issues which I will post in later threads.

When I choose to 'Switch User' the screen goes blank and the computer freezes. It is completely unresponsive to keyboard input. To regain control of the system I have to do a cold restart. By searching other forums it seems it may be a problem with the video driver.

I use Ubuntu 7.10 (Gusty) on an Intel P4 2.4GHz with an ATI 9600se AGP video card runing on the "fglrx" driver.

If you need more information let me know.

Thanks in advance.

When it freezes, see if you can get to a command prompt with ctrl-alt-F1 (or F2). Also, what happens if you do ctrl-alt-F7?

Another thing to try:

During boot-up, when the grub menu appears, hit any key to stop the countdown, then:

Select the Linux version to boot (if in doubt, just leave the default)
enter "e" for edit, select the kernel line, and "e" again.
add "single" at the end of the line (no quotes)
hit enter, and then "b" to continue booting.

The computer will now come up in a text-only mode. At the prompt, type "startx" and see if it goes to graphical mode. If it fails, you will see some error messages that might give a clue.

No key commands work including ctrl-alt-F#

I tried the other suggestion and the Xwindows system (or GNOME or whatever) started up beautifully. I just can't switch users.

What is the effect of the switch user feature suppose to be? direct switch to the next user? or exit to a login screen?

i got the same problem. I think the computer didn't freeze. It just showing the bland screen for asking user to type his/her password. here is the workaround i have been using:

1) User A switched to User B
2) Blank screen showed up (seems like freeze on User B)
3) Type User B's login password
4) User B's desktop show up

This worked for me

Thank you all for your help.

I was having other issues related to my ATI 9600se Video Card. So I bought an nVidia card and all is well including my switch user issue. Turns out Linux (or at least Ubuntu) dose not handle ATI well.

Thanks again.