Mystery of the vanishing session

[Ross Boylan <RossBoylan@stanfordalumni.org>]

DISAPPEARING SESSIONS

I am running KDE 2 (2.2.2) on Debian/testing, and I have also built
KDE 3.1 (c. rc5) from CVS and installed it in local directories.

So my kdm is from the standard distribution.  I have added a kde3
session type to it to invoke the kde 3 installation.  The problem I
have is that session type keeps disappearing--not every time I log out
or shutdown, but intermittently.

I originally created the session type by editing some control files;
the first time it disappeared I used kcontrol's login manager settings
to add the session.  Either way, it sometimes disappears.  (The kde3
invoking script I wrote for the session to use doesn't disappear, but
the kde3 in the session drop downs does disappear).

Since I thought the setup might be somewhat Debian specific, I thought
I'd ask here.

One theory that has occurred to me is that it may disappear whenever
my last logout is from a kde3 session.  I typically run kde2 in one
virtual terminal and kde3 in another.  Does anyone see any way the
kde3 logout could overwrite the settings kde2 uses?  Note that my kde3
build is standard, not via debian/rules.

Another possibility is that something about apt-get dist-upgrade
resets the session list, since I just did one of those before the
session disappeared.

RELUCTANT SHUTDOWN

Another peculiarity I've noted is that since I added a second virtual
terminal in /etc/kde2/kdm/Xservers I can not shutdown without first
letting the second virtual terminal display its login screen. In other
words, if I just work in vt7 and then logout and shutdown, I get
switched to vt1 (as usual).  But no shutdown happens til I manually
switch to vt8 and the login screen appears.  At that point I get
switched back to vt1 and watch as the shutdown proceeds.  Anybody know
what's up with that?

Thanks.