You can exit the gui with Ctrl-Alt-F8 this will give you a blank screen. Then Ctrl-Alt-F1 to get a command line login (F1 through F6 are all separate virtual terminals - you can log in more than once). You can return to the X session at any time with Ctrl-Alt-F7.
This can be done at any time to switch between virtual terminals and to and from the X11 display without loosing the state of any of the virtual terminals or the X session.
If you are changing the X11 drivers or configuration you may need to restart your X server. Ctrl-Alt-Backspace will kill the X server. If you are in runlevel 3 as sleipnir214 suggests this will return you to the command line (in this case it's healthier to just log out then issue startx again), but in runlevel five (graphical login) X will restart after this and give you the login screen.
Ctrl-Alt-Backspace will immediately kill your X session, without logging out, so it's a good idea to log out first so you don't lose any settings.
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