I got to the bottom of this. to summarize it was an interesting interaction between aspects of the intel i915 video driver on my system and vbetool. With the default boot vbetool would not work, to turn off the screen, nor would setterm -blank force Adding the kernel option nomodeset in grub.conf fixed that problem but also meant that X would not boot running rmmod i915 then modprobe i915 modeset=1 left both vbetool and X working as hoped. Probably setting modeset=1 on the kernel option would work. I suspect this problem will not touch all drivers but if you do run across it this is one thing to try. regards Peter -- I HAVE MOVED. Note new contact details: Peter Rayner room 330 School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, 3010, Vic, Australia tel: work: +61 (0)3 8344 9708; fax: +61 (0)3 8344 7761 mobile +61 402 752 379 mail-to: prayner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx _______________________________________________ Blinux-list mailing list Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list