KDM: adding new session does not work

[Guest]

Hello,

I tried to add a new session for KDM, but no matter what I try the new session does not show up in KDM... What I tried already:

• Went to /usr/share/xsessions and copied kde.desktop to kde4.desktop (= setup for trunk development of KDE)
  
• I've modified kde4.desktop like this:

[Desktop Entry]
Encodiding=UTF-8
Type =XSession
Exec=$HOME/kde/bin/startkde
TryExec=$HOME/kde/bin/startkde
Name=KDE4
Comment=KDE Desktop Environment.
X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain=desktop_kdebase-workspace

• This did not work, so I copied kde4.desktop also to /usr/share/kde4/apps/kdm/sessions
  
• I checked /etc/kde4/kdm/kdmrc for the SessionsDirs setting. No SessionsDir setting has been specified in kdmrc, so I tried to add SessionsDirs=/usr/share/xsessions under the section [X-*-Core]

But I had no luck... Until know I've developed under Suse and the description at http://techbase.kde.org/Getting_Star..._KDE_4_session was sufficient, but it seems I'm missing a detail now...

Any help would be very welcome :-)

Thanks in advance,
Peter

[ntzim]

Re: KDM: adding new session does not work

The default configuration allows new sessions.
So did you try:

dpkg-reconfigure kdm

[Rog131]

Re: KDM: adding new session does not work

Maybe the "$HOME/kde/bin/startkde" need be in the root's path ?


I tried with the :

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Type=XSession
Exec=/home/rog131/Test/start2
TryExec=/home/rog131/Test/start2
Name=KDE2

=> No KDE2 session

but with the

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Type=XSession
Exec=/usr/bin/start2
TryExec=/usr/bin/start2
Name=KDE2

and the /usr/bin/start2 is a symlink to the /home/rog131/Test/start2

ls -l /usr/bin/start*

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 21 2009-12-05 13:23 /usr/bin/start2 -> /home/rog131/Test/start2

=> then there is an option "KDE2" in the Login...


Maybe relevant #1 ? The "home/rog131/Test/start2 is an empty executable script file.

Maybe relevant #2 ? - long time ago: "In the first time i needed to run KDE4 in the xephyr window. Full session didn't fire up before i had run xephyr-session once." (That was with the Kubuntu 7.10 / KDE4 Beta 3 > Re: KDE 4 Beta 3 Majorly Broken)

[Guest]

Re: KDM: adding new session does not work

Thanks a lot, this was the reason It works now perfectly!

[Snowhog]

Re: KDM: adding new session does not work

Maybe the "$HOME/kde/bin/startkde" need be in the root's path ?

Is that even a good/sound idea? Won't this mean that 'root' is running a KDM session within a directory in the users /home directory?

[Rog131]

Re: KDM: adding new session does not work

The minimum for the .desktop file seems to be:

- there is a file where the "Exec" is pointing and the file is an executable /3/.

No need to be in the PATH /1/, /2/


but as told by the Peter Penz's link (http://techbase.kde.org/Getting_Star..._KDE_4_session):

Replace $HOME/kde in the example above with the prefix you are installing KDE4 into.

You might have to edit your startkde scripts, ie: change

this

kdehome=$HOME/.kde

to this

kdehome=$HOME/.kde4

or paste this

export KDEDIR=`kde4-config --prefix`
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$KDEDIR/lib
export PATH=$KDEDIR/bin/:$PATH
export KDEHOME=~/.kde4

on top...

/1/ > PATH Definition
/2/ > PATH HOWTO
/3/ > Desktop Entry Specification

The Exec key

The Exec key must contain a command line. A command line consists of an executable program optionally followed by one or more arguments. The executable program can either be specified with its full path or with the name of the executable only. If no full path is provided the executable is looked up in the $PATH used by the desktop environment...