How do I get KDM to launch KDE ?

[Oliver Fuchs]

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005, Edward Lichtner wrote:

> Hi,
> I selected KDM to run at startup by editing /etc/ttys :
> ttyv8   ³/usr/local/bin/kdm ­nodaemon²   xterm   on   secure
> I also created a .xsession file both in /root and in my home directory with
> the line :
> exec startkde
> When I reboot, KDM starts up but when I login (correct password), the login
> windows disappears, the KDM background remains and KDE doesn¹t start.
> However, KDE starts fine when I run startx in a terminal session.
> Is there something I didn¹t do properly ?
> Thanks,
> Edward

See the handbook for more informations (5.7.3.1 The KDE Display Manager):

[...]
To make sure kdm understands what the
labels (KDE, GNOME etc) mean, edit the files used by XDM.
In a terminal window, as root, edit the file /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xdm/Xsession. 
There is a section in the middle like this:

case $# in
1)
        case $1 in
        failsafe)
                exec xterm -geometry 80x24-0-0
                ;;
        esac
esac

A few lines need to be added to this section. Assuming the labels 
from used were ``KDE'' and ``GNOME'', use the following:

case $# in
1)
        case $1 in
        kde)
                exec /usr/local/bin/startkde
                ;;
        GNOME)
                exec /usr/X11R6/bin/gnome-session
                ;;
        failsafe)
                exec xterm -geometry 80x24-0-0
                ;;
        esac
esac
[...]

Oliver
-- 
... don't touch the bang bang fruit