Newbie: starting KDE on login problem - Linux Setup, Configuration & Administration

[JP]

Hi,

I *just* finished installing RedHat7.2 today and *just* got XFree86
working and now have a GUI desktop, but it looks like twm or something
to that effect. I've tried to change it to use KDE on startup (by
selecting KDE on the GUI login window, through startkde and hopefully
have KDE preferences in my home directory, and use switchdesk to
select KDE), none of them worked.

My question is, how do I get KDE to start by itself? The problem right
now is that, if I do startkde, a window is opened in twm with the KDE
desktop, and the kicker panel is opened at the bottom, both of them I
can drag around. I want to work in KDE, not twm. How can I get that
going??

My biggest concern is, this is not the first time I've done this. I in
fact have used the same CDs to install RH7.2 on a couple of other
boxes before, none of them ever gave me problems. So then what's the
problem??

btw, when I run startkde, I get this message:

xset: bad font path element (#59), possible causes are:
Directory does not exist or has wrong permissions
Directory missing fonts.dir
Incorrect font server address or syntax
DCOPServer up and running.
kwin: it looks like there's already a window manager running. kwin not
started.
....

Assumably the problem with xset is causing KDE to go to failsafe... I
don't know... I'm going to troubleshoot this a bit more... thanks for
any advice!!

James

[John]

On 10 Nov 2003 18:14:42 -0800, JP wrote: 

This last message leads one to believe that you already have X running.
Do a "ps -A". Do you see twm?

--
When you are right, you cannot be too radical; When you are wrong,
you cannot be too conservative. -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

[JP]

Hi!

John Fettig <SPAMedu.invalid> wrote in message news:<bopt85$rei$ks.uiuc.edu>... 
>
> This last message leads one to believe that you already have X running.
> Do a "ps -A". Do you see twm?[/ref]

Yes, I do. That's the problem: I had chosen KDE during login, and for
some reason, KDE doesn't show up. All I get is twm.

I have .Xclients and .Xclients-default in my root directory, and
..Xclients-default says
exec startkde

I'm assuming this doesn't get executed properly... does this have
anything to do with the xset fonts problem (which causes KDE to not
start)??

Thanks again!

James

[John]

On 11 Nov 2003 08:30:51 -0800, JP wrote: 
>>
>> This last message leads one to believe that you already have X running.
>> Do a "ps -A". Do you see twm?[/ref]
>
> Yes, I do. That's the problem: I had chosen KDE during login, and for
> some reason, KDE doesn't show up. All I get is twm.[/ref]

I'm not a real big KDE person, so I'm not sure if the fonts are keeping
KDE from starting. But I'm pretty sure you won't get what you want
trying to startkde inside of twm. I've forgotten which distro you said
you are running, but here are general instructions:

kill twm some way or another. You may also have to kill xdm/kdm/gdm.
The best way to do this is through the init scripts. Probably
"/etc/init.d/kdm stop" or "/etc/init.d/twm stop". The other way is to
just kill kdm and/or twm: "killall kdm" or "killall twm". Once you are
back at a virtual console, try startkde. If that works, you can go from
there.

--
When you are right, you cannot be too radical; When you are wrong,
you cannot be too conservative. -- Martin Luther King, Jr.