XFree86 Configuration

[Gavin Hubbard]

Hello List

My Alphaserver DS20 system was running quite well. Unfortunately I've hit a
small snag - I'm trying to configure XFree86 as per the instructions in the
FreeBSD handbook:

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x-config.html

In section 5.4.2 it says to run "XFree86 -configure" as root to build the
initial configuration. Unfortunately this command has completely locked up
the system's primary console and I am unable to switch to a virtual terminal
to kill the offending process.

First of all, what has gone wrong? (my framebuffer is supported by
XFree86-4). Second, how do I break out of the crashed console? Is there a
magic key combination I can use? The system seems to be alive (it responds
to pings) but I have not enabled telnet/ssh or any other remote admin tools.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Regards,

Gavin Hubbard