kdm pre-4.1 fails to start X

[Rex Dieter]

Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:

> I'm running the kde-unstable version from kde-redhat, currently at
> version 4.0.98, and have kdm as my desktop manager.
> 
> When going into runlevel 5, X starts up and gives me an error box
> complaining that it can't find /usr/share/kde4/apps/kdm/themes/circles.
> Clicking on OK then terminates X, though kdm is still running.
> 
> A look at /usr/share/kde4/apps/kdm/themes shows two subdirectories,
> FedoraWaves and oxygen.
> 
> This of course happens before any login, so it can't be a problem with
> my personal settings. If I log in at a console and run 'startx', KDE
> starts up normally. Ditto if I run gdm instead of kdm.
> 
> Is this something trivial or do I need to go to BZ?

Sure enough, circles has gone awol (not sure why yet).

In this case, circles was never the default (did you modify it for that
choice?), and coding to work around individual cases of themes disappearing
or incompatible ones is a losing battle.

The better fix, imo, would be for kdm to fail more gracefully (like in
kde3).

-- Rex