Mmm, no dice?
Okay, there has to be a way to run xterm with the X server running but no
KDE env in place... Maybe from a remote ssh session.
Yes, you're right. You could use "ssh -Y ...; echo $DISPLAY; export
DISPLAY=...; xterm" but I'd make sure that KDM/KDE isn't running to
ensure that there's no interference.
My knowledge of X, WMs, and DEs is minimal so my other option would be
to log out of KDM/KDE, go to a vt, stop KDM, install fluxbox, start
fluxbox, and launch xterm to see where it starts off. There's probably
a way of starting just X and an xterm without installing fluxbox but I
tried a few days ago to start X with just "X" on a Fedora install and
the whole of GNOME came up; I didn't try anything else because I
didn't the time to do so but I'll have to take a look at "/etc/X11" to
see if there's any call to GDM there...