KDM hint.

[David Anselmi]

I hate to sound dumb too, but it actually works a little differently.

I discovered this by hacking the Xsession script to echo it's parameters (added a
line like:
echo "in Xsession \$# = $# \$1 = $1
).

That showed me that nothing was getting passed in as $1.  I think the output of that
script goes in ~/.xsession-errors - there or somewhere fairly obvious (the console,
/var/log/something).

So I changed my /etc/X11/xdm/xdm-config like so:
DisplayManager*session: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xdm/Xsession /usr/local/kde/bin/startkde

But that's wrong too.  What really happens is that the kdm login box has a drop-down
labled "Session Type".  The string that's selected is what gets passed in to
Xsession.  I had some problems where nothing was selected (which I discovered after I
hacked the error message at the end of Xsession).  Eventually I yanked everything
except 'kde' and 'failsafe' (there's a place in the KDE control center to do that).

The other problem I had (that was obscuring the above) was that when kdm starts from
init, there's no path set (or any other .profile type environment settings).  That
means that when Xsession goes looking for kde or startkde (actually $1 or start$1 in
the script) using the type command, it fails (type looks in your path which is set
when you log in).  So to fix that I added a line to source ~/.xsession (that way
users get some input on their KDE environment, the way they should).  When I did
that, I discovered that my original fix was the wrong one.

I agree that the install docs for kdm (and KDE) are lacking.  In the end, the xdm man
page was most helpful, but it used terminology that wasn't easy to grok the first 10
times through.

I'll try to write an addition to the kdm hint, if I get time to reproduce what I did
and test it.

Dave

Craig Colton wrote:

> On Sunday 29 July 2001 21:19, you wrote:
> > Perhaps something to add to the kdm hint:
> >
>
> >
> > The Xsession script
> > takes the place of .xinitrc when logging in via kdm (or xdm - they work
> > the same for this part).  At the end it tries to run $1 - I can't find
> > any way to pass in a $1 except the above.
>
> Hate to sound dumb, but how did you discover this?
> >
> > This line in /etc/X11/xdm/xdm-config:
>  DisplayManager*session: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xdm/Xsession
> > should have the path to startkde appended to it.
>
> Do you mean added to the end, or replaced with the above (how bout an example
> :))?I have found that documentation on how to get X to correctly start KDM is
> either hard to come by or incorrect. It doesn't seem that one should have to
> go to the mailing lists (as I did), for answers to what should be a common
> configuration.
>         I think that KDE must assume everyone uses distros whose programmers have
> already set this stuff up. It just aint right.
>         Regards,
>         Craig

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