> I seem to recall (back in X11R3 days) a command used to get a Sun
> console out of graphics mode, is there any such for XFree86 on i386?

I think your memory is flaky.  What you are probably remembering is
kbd_mode, and it was not to get the screen out of graphics mode (Suns
of that era didn't _have_ "graphics" and "text" modes; they were always
graphics displays, with text generated by painting pixels) but rather
to get the *keyboard* out of raw-event mode and back into plain-text
mode.

As for addressing your desire...well, I'm going out on a limb in saying
this, because I don't really know i386en or XFree86.  But I would guess
that there isn't really because how to do it is video-hardware-specific
and only the X server knows enough about the hardware.

> Would xdm recover from this situation?

Maybe.  Does running X again (running it from another virtual console,
but telling it to use the stuck one) help any?

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