KDE would work fine. Then, all of a sudden, I would not be able to login to KDE anymore. It would freeze at "Detecting Devices" (I think it was that, it's the second icon on the splash screen) To fix it, I would delete all my .kde directories and reboot my computer.

I finally noticed the problem is connected to my dialup connection. KDE will login fine, but as soon as I use wvdial to connect to the Internet KDE will not start anymore. Can anyone think of why this would happen?

I don't know if the same happens with an ethernet connection, I haven't had a chance to try it yet.

The only thing that I changed myself concerning networking is I editted the /etc/hosts file from

127.0.0.1 localhost

to

127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 debian.localdomain debian

I am running Sid, but the same thing was happening on Sarge. I am using XDM and the 2.4.26 kernel.

Thanks much!

I don't use KDE, so i can't help you.

If you don't get an answer here, try the debian channels at the IRC (#debian, #debian-kde) they are pretty helpful.

SOLUTION

This was an awful problem to have, and worst of all it's so hard to explain and therefore to Google for.

Symptom:
Some X programs will not start, or, will come up minutes after they are started. It's only some programs, mostly Konqueror and some KDE apps, including KDE itself, and OpenOffice.org. The worst part is that many times these programs WILL work, and will work perfectly.

Correlation:
I finally noticed that the problem was in the network connection. When I was connected to the Internet, via either ppp (wvdial) or ethernet (dhclient), these applications would not start. When my computer was not connected to the Internet (for example, after a fresh boot) every program would work perfectly.

Problem:
The '/etc/network/interfaces' file was empty. (except for some comments) I'm not very good at understanding networking or X, but I think a basic way to explain it is that without the proper information in this file, X knows about the Internet but it doesn't know about my computer sitting in front of me. Therefore, OpenOffice.org would not start because it didn't know which computer to send it to, and Konqueror would take minutes to load because it was taking some sort of strange and long route to get back to my computer.

Solution:
But anyway, all I had to do was put this in the '/etc/network/interfaces' file:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

and then (to make it easy) simply reboot.

Apparently, not too many other people have had this problem, and it's an awful one to have. My hope is that this post will make the person who has this problem next's life a little easier.

Keywords: konqueror kde startup minutes lag slow openoffice.org writer freezes network ppp problem debian sid 28% percent

My computer:
Debian SID (today 2004.07.31)
Kernel 2.4.26
Fujitsu P-2110 Lifebook
Transmeta Crusoe 866mhz
384mb RAM