livdvdread, xconfig not working with KDM
 

I recently started taking advantage of KDM, but I noticed when I started booting directly into runlevel 4, both xconfig and libdvdread stopped working. I have no idea why, and everything else works just great with KDM. I can boot the DVD, look at the contents of the drive, boot cd's (it's a combo CD-RW/DVD-ROM). Both libdvdead and xconfig work fine if I boot into a standard console and type "startx." Here are the details:

****I set up KDM by editing /etc/inittab and specifying 4 as the default runlevel. I then commented out the sections for GDM in /etc/rc.d/rc.4, leaving both the KDM and XDM entries uncommented (the script looks for KDM before XDM, so I figured that would be fine). I then made the script executable. I have not tried using XDM. I've never used XDM and I'm not sure what will happen.

****I'm running Slack 11.0, kept up to date with slapt-get tracking 11.0. Kernel 2.6.21.4 (though this problem happened using 2.6.21.3 and maybe a few more releases back). The machine is a Dell Inspiron 5150 (it's a real P.O.S, for the record) with a Pentium 4 and 512mb of memory.

****libdvdread returns this error after starting mplayer in console ("gmplayer"):
libdvdcss is installed (using Slackbuild script). Mplayer works fine (expect in this case), and was built using a Slackbuild script as well.

****xconfig returns this error when started in console:

I don't even know where to start to diagnose this. Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance!

I don't know anything about the libdvdread problem, but can I suggest you try running xconfig as your regular user (or perhaps with sudo, if you really really really want root permissions on that). The problem is that you're moving into a root terminal, but root doesn't have an active xsession running on the monitor.

hmm, that makes sense, but

1) If I run as a regular user, I can't save the changes to .config in the kernel source, because the regular user doesn't have permissions, and
2) This all works honky-dory if I start X manually using startx at the console. Root wouldn't have an X session going in that case, either, right?

Not trying to critique your answer, but I'm obviously missing something. . .

I've run into the same problem, and I'm pretty sure that it has something to do with the environment variables in su, I'm just not sure what. If someone else could give some insight into that it would be awesome. As for the issues with creating the .config file, that's why I recommended sudo in parenthesis up there, although you should know that there's no longer any need to build your kernel in /usr/src/linux any more, and it's actually discouraged in the README included with every new kernel. The only thing you really need to do as root is install the kernel and modules.

If you logon at the console, your account automatically gets added to several groups important for local device access. If you logon through KDM or any runlevel 4 login manager, this will not happen.
The group membership you are probably lacking at the moment is that of "cdrom" which is needed to be able to access CDROM and DVD devices.
Add yourself manually to the "cdrom" group and everything should work again (after logging out and loggin on again).

Eric