I completed enough installs (X11, gtk+, etc.) to get xfce up and running plus
my favorite mailer sylpheed, but...

xfce will not run successfully other than from root!

xfce comes up, but any attempt to launch any of its programs dies quietly as a
normal user.

Full functionality works (including mail) as root, but I'm not interested in
running as root very much.

How can I fix this?

Thanks,
-- 
Collins Richey
Denver Area
Sybil test system (reiserfs)