I've emerged KDE and Xfree, yet when I run xdm I get the KDE splash and then an error message saying it couldn't find kdeinit. When I run startkde I get this output:

xset: unable to open display ""
xset: unable to open display ""
xsetroot: unable to open display ""
startkde: Starting up...
startkde: running kpersonalizer...
Kpersonalizer: Error while loading shared libraries: libfam.so.0: cannot open shared object file: no such file or directory
kwin: Cannot connect to x server
kdeinit: Error while loading shared libraries: libfam.so.0: cannot open shared object file: no such file or directory
startkde: Could not start kdeinit. Check your installation.
Ksplash: Cannot connect to X server
Error: Can't open display
Warning: connect() failed, no such file or directory
ksmserver: Cannot connect to x server
Startkde: Shutting down...
Warning: connect() failed, no such file or directory
startkde: Running shut down scripts
startkde: done

Now I have this libfam file in my portage directory, with the ebuild, but if I try to emerge it it doesn't find the file. XFree works. I can load up the screen with the clock and three terminal windows. So I know I have that working fine, it's just KDE keeps botching up.

KDE and Xfree are the only things I emerged after loading up the stable kernel (meaning that there was obviously lots of emerging in order to install the kernel, but one I got text mode up and running those were the only two emerges). So I probably missed something somewhere along the line. Any clues?

Thanks!

The first thing to do is to find out why it cannot find kdeinit. Run this command to see where kdeinit is:
find / -iname "*kdeinit*"

If you find kdeinit then take a look at /home/user/.xinitrc and see where that script thinks kdeinit is.

Or use locate,
Isntant searches, read man locate first to learn how to update it's database. Only takes a few minutes to update, you can add it to your crontab, and make it do it nightly.

Hmmm....locate or find doesn't find .xinitrc at all....I found kdeinit though.

Any solutions for .xinit?

"Any solutions for .xinit?"

We are getting into an area that is very release dependent. I can tell you how things are done on SuSE which may or may not be helpful on Gentoo.

On SuSE your graphical login, kdm on SuSE, lets you select what window manager you want to run. Then it passes the WINDOWMANAGER parameter to startx which passes it to .xinitrc. .xinitrc is a script which uses WINDOWMANAGER to run the correct program, in this case kdeinit.

So the best thing to do is for somebody who uses Gentoo to give you a Gentoo .xinitrc script to use, assuming that Gentoo also uses .xinitrc to start the right window manager.

In the error messages you get some messages from startkde. Maybe Gentoo is calling startkde. Try finding your startkde script and see if that is where Gentoo starts kdeinit.

Startkde was the right file...however it was pointed in the right direction.

Maybe the problem lies more towards the missing libraries? I have no idea where to get them from, or where to find them.

SuSE uses rpm packages. The kde library is in a package called kdelibs3. Most of the programs are installed in /opt/kde3/lib/ Some are installed in /opt/kde3/bin The control files are /etc/kde3rc and /etc/opt/kde3


Something that worked for another person having problems with installing KDE using apt was to break the problem into smaller chunks so that apt was less likely to stumble over the dependency complexities in KDE. He installed Qt, arts, libs and KDE as separate installs, I think in that order.

I'll try that out ~ Do you know the command to remove a package you installing via emerging?

" Do you know the command to remove a package you installing via emerging?"

No.

I don't think you should try to remove anything. Some of what you install will be installing on top of itself and that is OK. The idea is to have many of the dependencies already installed so that apt does not have as complex an install as a complete KDE install.

I got it working ~ But I had to emerge KDE as a whole, I wasn't able to leave out packages that I don't need (like the education trash, networking, toys, that stuff).

I emerged qt and arts and then just emerged lib* since there was no specific lib that seemed to apply to KDE, so I just did em all.