>> if I now Ctrl-Alt-F2 I just get a frozen view of my other desktop.
> Correction, I actually get that result when trying to go to any
> virtual console other than the one that has my X session.  Ie. even
> ones that are known to have text only login sessions.  So its likely
> the kernel that's lost something?

Not really, AIUI - you've run into a misfeature of Intel-box video.

When doing a console switch involving a non-text console, the kernel
does not know how to save and restore the relevant hardware bits.  So
it just generates an event telling whatever is dealing with the
graphics to do the save/restore.

Except of course that in this case that's the wedged (or dead) X
server, so nothing happens.

Of course, this really ought to be dealt with by the card's driver in
the OS.  I'm not entirely sure why that's not done.

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