I posted earlier but realized that my problem is not only for one user but actually for all...KDE, which used to run just fine, is choking completely when I "startx" or "startkde." The only thing I've changed is added Skype, which required some qt tweaking. I also added "/usr/local/thekompany/lib" to my ld.so.conf file so that Skype could find a file it needed. I have commented out that line, run "ldconfig," restarted the computer (gack, a sin!) and lo and behold, it now works.

I'm running RedHat 8.0 with KDE 3.0.5 and noticed this problem initially when trying to run VNC. But then I logged out, KDE wouldn't start, and I got a "check your installation" error.

I believe the problem may be that at one point I tried to upgrade my KDE installation and that adding "/usr/local/thekompany/lib" to my ld.so.conf file then confused the "startkde" script? I seem to have solved the problem by making simlinks from /usr/local/lib to the two files in "/usr/local/thekompany/lib" that Skype needed to run...and now Skype runs and I can also login (whew!) to KDE.

My question is that while I seem to have solved the problem and put the fire out, I don't really know WHY this worked or what I actually did wrong to begin with. Anyone out there have any ideas or know of a good place to learn more about ld.so.conf and how it can mess things up if too many directories get added?

Many thanks.... :-)

the ld.so.conf file is for updating system libraries so the programs that need them can find them........you might want to put stuff you want to keep updated in your ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bash.rc