Peter, Yup. Go into Yast and under "System administration" | "Login configuration" select "graphical." You will have a choice between XDM and KDM. XDM is the the traditional destop manager, and KDM is the one that comes with KDE. Beyond that the only difference I know of is the letter. There could be a lot of difference, but I don't know much about them. What this does is boot your system into "init 3 run level." You should learn about run levels. They are important. I'm not sure exactly what has to be configured to get gnome to run. I use the KDE exclusively, and my GNOME config is completely messed up. I believe an out of the box SuSE install will run the KDE and GNOME just fine. When you boot up you will see the system briefly go to a command prompt, and then enter X mode. The first window you see with be a login window. Assuming you have both GNOME and KDE installed, you will be able to pick them from pulldown list. Here's a reall brief intro to run levels: init 0 shuts the system down; init 1 puts you in a non-networked "configuration" mode ( I believe this is technically still a multi-user mode); init s puts you in "single user" mode, this is a system configuration mode; init 3 starts X for you (assuming it's configured) init 6 reboots the system. For each run level there is an /etc/rc.d/rc#.d where '#' is the number of the runlevel. There isn't an rcs.d ... don't know why? The /etc/rc.d is "symlinked" from /sbin/init.d. This means it is physically stored in the /sbin/init.d directory and just has a pointer to make it look like it's in /etc. Under each of the /etc/rc.d/rc#.d directories there are a bunch of S###<service name> and K###<service name> files. These are usually symlinked back to the /etc/rc.d directory. If you want to see what I'm talking about do this: ls -l /etc/rc.d you'll see: lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 14 Apr 4 12:30 /etc/rc.d -> ../sbin/init.d which shows you that /etc/rc.d is really /sbin/init.d. then do something like ls -l /etc/rc.d/rc3.d You'll see a whole slew of files called K20apache -> ../apache and S20apache -> ../apache The "../" says they are symlinked to their parent directory. that means when K20apache is called, ../apache is what is actually run. The 'K's typically kill process, and the 'S's typically start them. The files linked to any given rc#.d are the ones available for starting or stopping when a run level is entered or exited. I believe the choice of which ones actually start is determined by the /etc/initd.conf or the /etc/xinitd.conf, depending on which ?initd you are running. All this stuff is configured by SuSE using the /etc/rc.config which is where Yast stores most of your choices. When you finish making changes in Yast and go to the start up page of Yast, a program called SuSEconfig is run. This program does a bunch of things. On of these is to read the /etc/rc.config and use the infromation to edit other files such as the initd. As always, don't take my word as final on any of this. Much of what I know comes from hacking, and not formal study. The SuSE book does a decent job of spelling this stuff out. HTH Peter B. Van Campen wrote:

SuSE users,

This SuSE 6.3 system automatically starts KDE when I type "startx'. When in KDE, if I "logout" kde closes and X stops, leaving me at the Prompt.

Can a user quit KDE and remain in X?

how can a user start X and go into GNOME instead of KDE?

Thanks for the Help!!

Pete VC

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