KDE desktop freezes
In such a situation you don't always need the reset button. This could damage the filesystem or lead to loss of data. In any way the filesystem wont be clean after a hard reset (filesystem not clean)
First try changing to a textconsole alt-ctl-F1 or restarting the X-server alt-ctl-backspace, (If either of these two options do not work, there is still hope):
The SYSRQ-key (print-key, on the upper right side of the keyboard) can help you to cleanly reboot a frozen system.
The following sequence of key-combinations are possible:
* ALT+SYSRQ+R (should give back control of the keyboard)
* ALT+SYSRQ+S (issues a sync)
* ALT+SYSRQ+E (Sends term to all processes but init)
* ALT+SYSRQ+I (Sends kill to all processes but init)
* ALT+SYSRQ+U (filesystems are mounted readonly, prevents fsck at reboot)
* ALT+SYSRQ+B (reboots the system, without the previous steps this would be a hard reset).
Its best give every step a few seconds to complete, ending all processes for example could take a little while. The needed letters can be easily remembered with: "Raising Skinny Elephants Is Utterly Boring"
Login problems to the system under KDE
The content of the /tmp directory is normally cleaned-up on each boot, so some directories and sockets needed by the X-Server are also deleted.
Normally, during the boot-process, the script x11-common for X-Org recreates these things.
Possibly these scripts are not being called during the boot process. To recreate the needed links by calling:
# X-ORG: # dpkg-reconfigure x11-common
How to enable or change KDM-themes
All changes must be done as root.
Enable themes
Currently KDM-themes are not enabled by default in debian.
Add a UseTheme=true line in the [X-*-Greeter]-stanza in your /etc/kde3/kdm/kdmrc file.
Change themes
If enabled, KDM uses its circles theme by default, to change this, just change the line with:
Theme=/usr/share/apps/kdm/themes/circles
to
Theme=/usr/share/apps/kdm/themes/
Disable Themes
If you want to disable your theme just change back to UseTheme=false
NOTE: You have to restart KDM after you've made changes to the kdmrc.
A simple way to use KDM themes is to install kdmtheme as root
apt-get install kdmtheme
kdmtheme is a theme manager for KDM. It provides a KDE Control Module (KCM) that allows you to easily install, remove and change your KDM themes.