I just went through this myself. Do this:
cat /var/log/messages
If it displays too much information, or you see no xdm entries then try
this:
grep xdm /var/log/messages
It'll tell you what's missing. I use kdm (xdm replacement). After
upgrading from Mandrake 6.0 to 7.0 kdm was working, but it would only start
in failsafe regardless of which wm was selected. I was able to work around
this by typing "startkde &" at the xterm window and KDE would work fine.
Since I have more pressing matters to work on I just dealt with it. Well,
last night I was searching the logs for DENY messages from my firewall and
noticed that xdm was failing on the file /etc/.../Xsession <-- can't
remember exact path, but I think it was /etc/X11R6/xdm. I took a peek in
that directory and there was no Xsession file. There was an Xsession~
(backup) and an rpmsave.Xsession, but no Xsession. Both of the
aforementioned backup files were dated the same so I did a:
cp Xsession~ Xsession
Ever since my system is working as expected. If you're not using kdm then
I'd take a look in your $HOME directory. It's missing the necessary file to
start KDE. If memory serves you need the line:
exec startkde
in your .xsession file ... could be wrong on this one. Check
http://www.bigfoot.com/~bill.mote where I've written a now outdated
installation page for KDE. It should have the information you need about
which file in $HOME to modify.
Bill Mote
----- Original Message -----
From: "wenzhong xiao" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2000 3:57 PM
Subject: [newbie] KDE can't start
>
> Hi
>
> After I installed mandrake7.0-2 on my PIII with Win98, KDE did not start
and
> I got dropped to plain X windows instead. twm can work but how can I start
> KDE? Thanks for the help!
>
> Wenzhong
>
>
