The exact line which seems to have posed problem was export DISPLAY=john:0.0 in .bash_profile. I'm a bit stumped as to why that is troublesome, though I guess it must conflict with the env var set by X (which is just 0:0). I think I added that line when I had XDMCP enabled and was doing stuff on another display-less machine. That way when I'd login through SSH, I could immediately launch a program that would display on my local machine.
I guess I'll have to do a little more work for the script to distinguish between being launched by X or during a login. > > It would be useful to warn the user of this 'new' behaviour, maybe in > > /usr/share/doc/NEWS.Debian. > > This seems quite reasonable. For the record, are you requesting that the new > behaviour be reverted, or simply that users be given better notice to allow > them to adapt with less hassle and frustration? Oh no, I wouldn't dare request a behaviour change. After all, I expect that being The Great Respected Maintainer, you know what you're doing ;). No, just giving users better notice should be enough. For example, a nice blatant warning during the pre-configure phase, as well as something in /usr/share/doc/kdm other than the changelog (through which I went, and must've missed that part, or dismissed as irrelevant) John