Re: [gentoo-dev] KDM/KOffice problems (a bit more explanation)

[Chris Johnson]

Eugenia, 

My understanding of KDM is as follows: 
-when I have visited a lab with a user account with kde installed and no
login manager (aka DISPLAYMANAGER) running when I log in, I issue
'startkde' to startup kde--this may work for you with gentoo (try it).
As I understand it, only root is supposed to run the kdm/gdm/xdm login
manager, because it is a portal for users to log in from! I.e., a user
does not have the authority to run kdm because that would be saying that
the user can run programs to check the password of other users, which is
not allowed--only the system checks such conditions. I guess in a pinch
you could run kdm by issuing 'sudo kdm' from a normal user, (this runs
the command as root if your system has sudo and is thus configured), but
it's not clear why you would want to allow that. 

-the larger issue it seems to me that you're trying to solve may be
having KDM running so that users login from the KDM screen; you have
already revealed success logging in from KDM with your user. Then, to
have KDM always running before the user walks up to the terminal, I
believe someone on the list has already hinted to issue command 

rc-update add xdm default
and you can define your (x/k/g)dm in /etc/rc.conf

This adds your KDM or gdm or whichever display login manager of choice
to the default upon startup of your computer (it then looks similar to
windows 2000 when freshly started, to login graphically). In the rc.conf
file you can specify which of those you want to use (uncomment
#DISPLAYMANAGER=xdm and change to kdm or your choice [xdm|gdm|kdm]). 

As for making startx default to kde, I think there is some documentation
specifying how to alter its default to start kde. Or you could just use
the command startkde, which is clearer. Ah, in /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc is
the setting to run twm unless a user has a .xinitrc in his home
directory (information eventually found by 'man startx').  Hope this
helps!

I fear this may be review already for you and not answering your
question, but I hope it helps. 

Chris


On Mon, 2002-04-08 at 03:01, Eugenia Loli-Queru wrote:
> Hello again,
> I would like to explain a bit more the problems I currently have reading KDM
> and if someone knows how to solve this, please step reply. :)
>
> I have installed the full KDE3 and also some KDE2 libraries as they were
> needed by KOffice 1.1.1 and Krusader 1.0. So, the problem is that I can't
> run any Display Manager for my users, only root can run them. I have told
> rc.conf to DISPLAYMANAGER=KDM but that does not work _at all_. When I typing
> startx, users only get the standard twm with the 3 xterms. When I type 'kdm'
> manually in the command line, only root can load it. Any idea why this is
> happening? Please note that when I am already on KDM as root, I can login as
> 'eugenia' via the kdm, it is just that when I am logging in to Gentoo in
> general and typing startx, only twm comes up. That DISPLAYMANAGER variable
> does not seem to work at all ! Any ideas?
>
> Also, KOffice just DOES NOT work with Gentoo when KDE 3 is installed prior
> to KDE 2. I would highly appreciate if you have a fix for this:
>
> eugenia $ kspread
> koffice (lib kofficecore): ERROR: Couldn't find the native MimeType in
> kspread's desktop file. Check your installation !
>
> This happens for all the users, including root.
> I tried to find info about the error on the net, and some people suggested
> to delete the ~/.kde dir or the ~/.kde/share/apps and then run the
> 'kbuildsycoca' script to rebuild the MIME types. NO JOY. None of the KOffice
> 1.1.1 apps work. :(
>
> Thank you,
> Eugenia
>
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