It was a combination of four separate problems, which is why it took some while to run it down. First, it turned out that my kernel configuration was not building in the backlighting module for laptops (thanks for the suggestion Hugh!). Once I recompiled the kernel with backlighting, the console reappeared. Second, the Lenovo 3000 n100 0768, for reasons unknown to me, must have a strange hardware keymap, because the (left) Windows key, the (right) menu key, and the PrtScr and Pause keys are all completely dead, according to showkey. This, despite enabling "windows keys" in the keymap. Since the tiling window managers I was using used the left Windows key and the main modifier, and exited X using the Pause key, no wonder it all seemed dead. Third, I had somehow forgotten basic X facts, and in my .xinitrc had set an xterm to run but without putting it in the background -- which meant that startx never got to the line running the window manager, and so I had X up with no wm, no surprise this didn't work out too well. Fourth, I needed to run mkfontdir on several files in /usr/share/fonts, so X would have something with which to draw into an xterm. No cure for the dead keys, as far as I know, but I can set the wm to use different modifier keys and work around them. Now, if I can only figure out how to turn off the LCD screen and leave the external monitor on... Thanks to one and all for the suggestions! -- Peter King peter.king@utoronto.ca Department of Philosophy 170 St. George Street #521 The University of Toronto (416)-978-4951 ofc Toronto, ON M5R 2M8 CANADA http://individual.utoronto.ca/pking/ ========================================================================= GPG keyID 0x7587EC42 (2B14 A355 46BC 2A16 D0BC 36F5 1FE6 D32A 7587 EC42) gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 7587EC42