Re: kdm resets on login

[Brian Kimball <bk@bk.cx>]

Jean de Largentaye wrote:

> After making the jump and upgrading to KDE 3.4.2, I cannot login
> through KDM anymore.
> The kdm login screen disappears, then I wait a few seconds for the
> kde splash to appear, then X resets, and back to the login screen.
> This happens whichever session I choose (of KDE, Larswm, or
> failsafe).
>
> Starting a session through startx from a console works, however, and
> brings me to KDE (btw: oooh shiny! ahem).

I had the same problem, and traced it to the following in 
my .bash_profile (which is now sourced by /etc/kde3/kdm/Xsession):

if [ -z "$SSH_AGENT_PID" ]; then
    exec ssh-agent bash --login
fi

This was turning my X session into a vanilla bash login shell which was 
exiting immediately (I'm guessing because there was no stdin or 
something, but this is where my knowledge fails me).

So check your shell's login scripts.

I guess technically this was my fault since I was assuming login shells 
are also always interactive shells, and now I see the bash man page 
says otherwise (and kdm/Xsession is taking advantage of this fact).  
Though I wonder how many other people are going to get bit by the same 
assumption.

Perhaps a NEWS.Debian is needed?  Or am I the only one doesn't know how 
to use his .bash_profile? :-)

     Brian