I have encountered this problem before and here is how I understand its: 1. It affects Matrox cards such as G400 and G450 2. Occurs when you configure lilo to boot the kernel with a framebuffer (graphical) console. A framebuffer driver gets loaded on a stock SuSE compiled kernel if you configure the "vga" parameter in lilo.conf to other values than "normal" (not exactly true but close enough for this description). 3. Switching from X to the text console produces a blank screen. I have a G450 card, and to solve this problem, I have this entry in my lilo.conf: vga=normal I made sure that there is no "append="vga=771"" or similar. I have used supported 2.4.7 and most of Hubert Mantel's kernel binaries up to 2.4.13 and have had no problem. All of the above applies only if you are using the binary images from the SuSE RPMs. If you built the kernel with your own options, then that may be a problem. Also, can you to post your lilo.conf to verify your configuration? Rafael P.S. I even have a trick in which I can still use a framebuffer. If the resolution of the X server and the framebuffer coincide, then I don't have problems switching. For example I use 1280x1024 on X, so I set vga=794 # 1280x1024x16 framebuffer and I have a ~60x132 character console.