kdm refuses to allow non-root login to kde

[Tim Kellers]

On Sunday 15 August 2004 02:33 am, Jonathan Chen wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 15, 2004 at 12:05:00AM -0400, Tim Kellers wrote:
> > I've been battling this on and off (mostly off) since April.
> >
> > If I put exec startkde in .xesession in a non-root folder and I enable
> > xdm in /etc/ttys, I can log into xorg's xdm and kde starts just fine --
> > even as a non-root user.
> >
> > If I enable kdm in /etc/ttys, I get the kdm login screen, and if I login
> > with a non-root account, the display just stays at it's default
> > background until I kill it with CNTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE.
>
> Sounds like a DNS problem (yes, I know, why the heck does kdm want
> with a DNS lookup - but there it is). If you put the output of
> hostname(1) into /etc/hosts as an alias for 127.0.0.1 (localhost),
> your problem _may_ go away.
>
> Cheers.

No Joy...

root still brings up the kde splash screen, everyone else sits frozen at the 
kde background screen.  xdm still works.  I'm at a complete loss how to 
explan this.

$vi /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1               www.smsdesign.org localhost
10.0.1.7                www.smsdesign.org www
10.0.1.7                www.smsdesign.org.
10.0.1.7                mail.smsdesign.org      mail
10.0.1.7                smsdesign.org.
128.235.112.11          eris.njit.edu   eris

I rebooted, too, just "in case."
~