After some more struggling I managed to get kde-base/systemsettings compiled: If I unmerge x11-libs/libxkbfile and then emerge systemsettings, it compiles fine (without support for the xkb settings). After that I did an emerge -DuvaN world and this pulls in libxkbfile again.
But when I try to start KDE4.2 (using kdm), the screen blanks out a few times while kde is loading (the spash screen being displayed) and then I briefly see a malformed desktop (the bottom of the taskbar wraps around to the top of the screen) and then just a black screen. In /var/log/messages, something about plasma crashing is reported, can't remember and I'm not at the PC now, but nothing very informative. I feel like going back to my good old days of windowmaker. Regards Dirk
