First my setup:

I'm using a Macbook, on that I run VMWare Fusion which has both Mepis and my (B)LFS on it.

so far I've completed the lfs book (6.2) and got at far as blfs' (6.3) Chapter 28 Configuring the Core KDE packages and have yet to do the additional packages.
Almost everything works fine but there's just a couple of things I need to correct:

1. I haven't installed any of the software in the BLFS book with a unprivileged user (because the first make command in the book couldn't be done with an unprivileged user). it's obviously a permission thing but I have no idea which one(s) to change.
2. I can't start KDE with an unprivileged user (kwin cannot connect to x server)...same permission thing.
So my question is: Which permissions does an unprivileged user need to run the above things?

3. my screen resolutions default on KDE (when I installed it) was 640x480 so I edited the /etc/X11/xorg.conf (I'm using Xorg-6.9.0 btw) to include my native 1280x800 resolution, it now displays all the following resolutions: 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1152x768, 1280x960, 1280x1024...but not 1280x800.
What exactly do I need to do to include this resolution?
note: My barebones (text-only) LFS system runs at 640x460 also, is there any way to make this 1280x800 too?

3. when I type "shutdown now" it continues to shutdown until it says: "INIT: no more processes left in this runlevel" after which I can't type any thing. my virtual machine doesn't turn off automatically.
my 2nd question: is this normal? should it turn off automatically or is this just the point where I shut it down.
note: if I send a ctrl + alt + delete it switches to runlevel 6, reboots and gives a lot of [ FAIL ] in the process.

Thanks a lot!

The first few issues relate to giving the user space you are working in the rights necessary to pass through the tasks and each process/program the task must go through needs congruency; in other words you can't be a user and try to pass through tasks into an administrator space. You have to have admin rights to work in an administrative capacity doing admin tasks.

This is a common problem working with hypervisors like VMware or XEN. People forget that they are a user in the host and try to do administrative tasks.
One way to handle this is to create test users: a super user that has all rights at every level and then a minimum user. Use each of these test profiles to track down where the blocks are by passing tasks across boundaries to see what can be done where by whom and then straighten out your access rights.

The other issue is tied to the fact that you are running very memory and process intensive applications and what is happening is you are running out of "head space" on the machine. You are running out of memory and or program handles. To work this problem you have to shutdown unused or unimportant programs, services and processes like TSR programs to free up resources; do this one at a time item by item. Keep track on a sheet of paper so you can track what you are doing. . Do this to see if you can get enough "wiggle room" to do what you need to do. It is like running out of hard drive space.

Once you get the system to work then step back and see what you need to do long term to fix the problem.