From the graphical kdm login for KDE, entering a valid user and password resulted in a x-server restart. The screen goes blank, them the kdm login pops up again (since I have it set to restart x upon termination.)

I logged in as root on a terminal (Ctrl-Alt-F2) and added a new user (adduser). I then switched back to the X terminal window (Ctrl-Alt-F9) and was able to log in with this new user. So the issue is user related, and can probably be fixed by making a change to something in the user’s home directory.

I then hid my .profile (mv .profile .profile.bak) and was able to log in via kdm to the problem account. I’ll debug the profile shortly.

Here are some associated error messages:

“kdm_greet[12345]: Can’t open default user face”

“stdin isn’t a terminal”

This occured after a number of system changes yesterday, so I’m not sure exactly what happened.