With xdm I can login as root and as a normal user but with kdm I can only login as root. When I try to login as a normal user, KDE doesn't load, it goes back to kdm. Downgrading to KDE 3.2.1 solved this issue. I'm using xorg, not xfree. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. /etc/init.d/xdm start 2. kdm loads 3. I try to login as a normal user Actual Results: KDE doesn't load, it goes back to kdm. Expected Results: KDE should have loaded. Portage 2.0.50-r6 (default-x86-2004.0, gcc-3.3.2, glibc-2.3.2-r9, 2.6.3-mm4) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.3-mm4 i686 AMD Athlon(TM) XP 2800+ Gentoo Base System version 1.4.9 Autoconf: sys-devel/autoconf-2.58-r1 Automake: sys-devel/automake-1.8.3 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CFLAGS="-march=athlon-xp -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" COMPILER="gcc3" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/mozilla/defaults/pref /usr/share/config /usr/share/texmf/dvipdfm/config/ /usr/share/texmf/dvips/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/platex/config/ /usr/share/texmf/xdvi/ /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-march=athlon-xp -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoaddcvs ccache sandbox" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://open-systems.ufl.edu/mirrors/gentoo http://gentoo.mirrors.pair.com/ http://gentoo.chem.wisc.edu/gentoo/" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="3dnow X aalib acpi aim alsa apache2 arts avi berkdb cdr crypt cups encode esd flac foomaticdb gd gdbm gif gphoto2 gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 icq imagemagick imlib innodb jabber java jpeg kde lcms ldap libg++ libwww mad maildir mikmod mmx motif mozilla mpeg msn mysql ncurses nls oggvorbis opengl oss pam pcmcia pdflib perl png postgres python qt quicktime readline sdl slang spell sse ssl svga tcltk tcpd tetex tiff truetype unicode usb x86 xml2 xmms xv yahoo zlib"
should be nothing different. I'd recommend a reboot to make sure all config file got loaded.
This has happened to me before and I resolved it by running: chown -R user:user /home/user substitute your username for user above.
Should not be an issue anymore.