Make KDE default login screen

[stichi]

Hi Folks,

it seems that I messed up my installation.

1. Installed Kubuntu 5.10
2. Installed Gnome -> was made defaut login screen
3. Upgrade to Dapper F6 then Beta

when normally booting I get the Kubuntu splash screen loading which ends in the terminal login prompt. no login screen (neither gdm nor kdm)

I log in as root and come to the root shell. startx makes startup gnome

how to make KDE start up automatically. Need a detailed procedure
apt-get install --reinstall kde-desktop did not solve the problem

when booting failsave the screen remains black


an even weirder startup-

I log in as user and come to the user shell. I sudo to change to root.
kdm starts kde login screen. when loggin in I end up in gnome ??

is there a kde for dummies turorial. I would like to understand what happens
after I pushed the ON-button on my laptop (gericom phantom 31100, AMD sempron 3100, 1024MB RAM, 100GB HD, ATI Radeon X200m)

of course it is also appreciated if someone can present a nice digest and step by step instruction.

Thank you all in advance

stichi

[sky]

Re: Make KDE default login screen

Hi,

You can choose to automatically start kdm in menus of this :
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
Following it, should make you be able to make a choice beween gdm, kdm and none...
Look out, first you should back up your /etc/X11/xorg.conf in case something will go wrong you would have no more X display...
To change from kdm to log on kde, you should go in menu, choose session and kde, it should be ok

[stichi]

Re: Make KDE default login screen

You can choose to automatically start kdm in menus of this :
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

First, the hint makeing a backup of this file was good.

Second, this sudo -dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg asked me so many questions, for many of them I got no idea or clue. So I always took the default values when I had no idea. But at the end, or close before finishing the whole set, the screen was tested and there it happened.

I saw everthing else than a nice screen. Horizontal lines in many gray shades...
So I hat to go back the backup. (Fortunately there was one, see above).

Is this the onyl way to get automatic KDE GUI login to work.

Btw, what is the difference between, kdm and kde?

I thought, that kdm is the k desktop manager which is running the kde the k desktop environment. Therefore I didn't understood what you meant sky, by the sentence..."To change from kdm to log on kde, you should...."

I know, once I have the GUI login screen, I can choose between different modi, such as kde, gnome, failsave or terminal, as far as I can remember.

This is actually the problem. I hace the splash coming up which shows that nice kubuntu logo and the loading bar in blue together with the lines of what is being loaded.

Once finished, instead of bringing up any gui login interface (be it gnome or kde) I end up at the terminal login prompt.

So where do I find the place and or file which calls the gui login inteface and how can i make it to come up automatically.

Since I installed Kubuntu 5.10 first and gnome afterwards, I believe that all setting considering the laptop screen have allready been identified corretcly.

so that was a lot of writing (maybe to much)

Thank you all for helping

(Personally, I want to get acquainted that much with (k)ubuntu, that at the release day of vista I can proudly, vista.......astal la vista vista-baby)

kind regards
stichi

[sky]

Re: Make KDE default login screen

Hi,

I can understand why you were disappointed by so many questions...
In fact, you don't always need to open this sudo dpkg... but it's usually easier, not in your case, it seems.
So we will try to do it in another way.
For info, kdm it's kde login manager (like gdm is gnome Desktop Manager), kde is the window manager...
So let start from the beginning, do you see at any moment under the boot bar the line "starting KDM..." or "starting GDM" ?
If yes, it's good, you can go to this file :
kdesu kate /etc/X11/default-display-manager
it should be empty and fill it by the following line :
/usr/bin/kdm

Maybe look if the file exists, if not, you may be missing the package kdm...

If it's not the case, post if you've seen something about kdm or gdm in boot screen, if the file exists and what is inside of the "default-display-manager"

Cheers

[stichi]

Re: Make KDE default login screen

OHHHH..........SKY.................MASTER OF KUBUNTU

you won´t believe it.........there was an "s" spoiling all the GUI login.

/etc/X11/default-display-manager contained the following line
/usr/sbin/kdm

so I simply deleted the letter "s" and rebooted. And here we are: GUI kdm is loading automatically.

whats puzzling me is that I don´t remeber having changed it before. Or how can you explain that there
was /etc/sbin/kdm and not /etc/bin/kdm

nevertheless thank you so very much


BTW where can I learn about these things

stichi

[sky]

Re: Make KDE default login screen

Hi,

cool, really happy you solved your trouble
Anyway I don't really have an explanation about this error, maybe after an upgrade, some package created link to the one contained in the file, and after another upgrade it gone away without being modified... I don't know
How you can learn things like this ? I'm doing it by trying to help others, it's teaching me a lot of things You can also go into the scripts and look around try to understand what they're doing but not modify them For example you can look in /etc/init.d there's all the starting scripts you're using and if you see something wrong, you can check out the script, the logs are usually in /var/log...
It's a lot of things like this, but most of all, be curious

Cheers

[kubicle]

Re: Make KDE default login screen

you won´t believe it.........there was an "s" spoiling all the GUI login.

/etc/X11/default-display-manager contained the following line
/usr/sbin/kdm

so I simply deleted the letter "s" and rebooted.  And here we are: GUI kdm is loading automatically.

whats puzzling me is that I don´t remeber having changed it before. Or how can you explain that there
was /etc/sbin/kdm and not /etc/bin/kdm   

The 's' issue most likely derives from the fact that gdm (Gnome's login manager) resides in /usr/sbin and kdm in /usr/bin.

However, if you haven't touched the file yourself it's odd it points to '/usr/sbin/kdm'...if this was caused by a faulty package or installation script I'd assume there would be a lot of people having the same problem :P

[stichi]

Re: Make KDE default login screen

So this means, when I want gdm to come up I need in /etc/X11/defautl-man*
to point it to /etc/sbin/gdm

and in case of kdm
to point it to /etc/bin/kdm

is that right?

I agree with your argumentation, other people would face the same problem.
Nevertheless, I'm new to linux and therefore I do not believe that at my present knowlegde-level I would start changing theses lines first.

As I said it before, I first installed Kubuntu 5.10 then Gnome.
During the installation or configuration or so a terminal opened asking me whether I wanted GDM or KDM/E my default desktop manager.

At this point, I suppose, the entry /etc/(s)bin/(g)kdm will be changed.

Unfortunately I don't remember exactly whether form this point GUI auto-login
stopped working or not.

But after upgrade to Dapper Flight 6, the "problem" definitvely was there.

However, important is, that my Kubuntu is running, and that it was, retrospectively, a "simple" problem.

BTW, why is gdm in sbin and kdm in bin? Does this open the possibility for changing the desktop manager at login or is this a random-like thing?

kind regards
stichi

[kubicle]

Re: Make KDE default login screen

So this means, when I want gdm to come up I need in /etc/X11/defautl-man*
to point it to /etc/sbin/gdm

and in case of kdm
to point it to /etc/bin/kdm 

is that right?

Essentially yes, though it's '/usr/(s)bin/(g)(k)dm' ...not '/etc/...'

I agree with your argumentation, other people would face the same problem.
Nevertheless, I'm new to linux and therefore I do not believe that at my present knowlegde-level I would start changing theses lines first.

As I said it before, I first installed Kubuntu 5.10 then Gnome.
During the installation or configuration or so a terminal opened asking me whether I wanted GDM or KDM/E my default desktop manager.

Theoretically, there could be a bug that affects only people installing kde over gnome...one that people would not see if they installed straight to kubuntu...we'll have to wait and see if more reports come in :P

BTW, why is gdm in sbin and kdm in bin? Does this open the possibility for changing the desktop manager at login or is this a random-like thing?

Well...as a rule...sbin should be used for binaries that are needed by administrators, and bin for user binaries...however, sometimes the distinction isn't clear and I'd assume gnome and kde developers just came to a different conclusion on where to put it
(This is my just own speculation...I don't know about the actual historical reason why kdm and gdm were put where they are )

[wyth]

Re: Make KDE default login screen

I just came across this post because I had the same question, and found a fix that worked flawlessly for me.

First, install sysv-rc-conf. It's in the repositories, and it sets what services are running at start, etc. Most likely, if your problem was like mine, gdm was running at a few run levels (2,3,4 and 5). Toggle those off, and scroll down to kdm, and toggle on for 2,3,4 and 5.

Reboot into your new KDM login screen.