Well after a busy day upgrading to 13.37 and getting various things set up and rebuilt every DE worked fine (Xfce, KDE, etc.) so I decided to removepkg Akonadi as it was always a pain when I closed down KDE. This meant KDE would no longer start - showing the initial "sign in" screen with the center panel with the five icons that start out fuzzy and clear as KDE gets itself started. The problem is the last icon in the panel, the one with the picture of the application launcher, stays fuzzy and the desktop just locks up at this point. Fair enough - I reinstalled Akonadi. The problem is still there though and KDE will not complete it's initial sign on screen before the desktop proper is displayed. In desperation I have done "upgradepkg --reinstall kde/*.txz" in my Slackware64 13.37 tree to try and fix Kde but it's still broken.

Are there any KDE experts that can help as I am now back to Xfce when I would like to give KDE another chance - (I have been using Xfce for some time now but miss KDE still - even though it's lately been a temperamental swine).

Have your tried deleting your .kde config file?

Yes - that was one of the first things I tried. Thanks for the quick reply though.

OK - problem solved. After reading CHANGES_AND_HINTS about turning off compositing I remembered the last thing I had tried when mucking about in KDE was to turn on compositing. I followed the instructions in C+H to turn them off and KDE now starts. There's another great tip in there that's fixed my fonts too! I should have read this earlier but just kind of got carried away with things!

Thanks Daedra - it was your tip in another thread about fonts that got me looking in C+H in the first place!