when you log out, X should be restarted. that's the flickering screen, and the mouse cursor on its own and so on, it shouldn't freeze or crash though, it should just go back to the login manager like you'd get when you first switch on.
however mandrake on my computer has been a little buggy over the different installations. sometimes it will just install weird. Usually for linux a reinstall is not the way to go, so i hear, but mandrake really challenges that notion for me. two things i would recommend to you: make /home into a seperate partition, so you keep your data even after reinstalling your system, and also make your filesystem an ext3 instead of an ext2 filesystem, it recovers easier.
Neither of those things helps with the problem, but it does help with if you do need to do a hard reset or a clean install.
[ November 09, 2002: Message edited by: Calum & his insidious little spies ]
