Kdeinit fails to start; hangs KDE

[John O'Hagan <johnohagan@iprimus.com.au>]

Hi, 

I'm using testing, upgraded regularly but still on KDE 3.3.2 because of 
dependency issues. As of yesterday, the KDE startup screen hangs, accompanied 
by a small box in the upper right corner saying (IIRC): "Could not launch 
kdeinit. Check your installation".

Pressing OK on this box allows KDE to start normally except for the absence of 
the klaptop power monitor (and maybe other things I haven't found yet).

An instance of kdeinit is actually running, owned by my normal user.

Should there be another instance for root?

Where should I look for the cause of this minor annoyance?

Thanks,

John