The KDE environment

Posted by peeper on Wed 1 Feb 2006 at 08:46

I'm running a number of Debian Sarge-based systems, with each using the Gnome Display Manager (gdm) to present a login screen after booting. From here the default is to log in to a KDE session.

Can anyone tell me where environment variables are set for a KDE session in order for them to take effect system-wide, for all users? I know that the KDE environment doesn't source any of the bash initialisation files (/etc/profile, /etc/bash.bashrc, ~/.bash_profile, etc), as I've experimented by changing the value of PATH in all of those files, without it having any effect on KDE's PATH environment variable upon session restart.

Maybe a better understanding of the start-up sequence from init bootstrap through to execution of an X-session, via an X login manager, would be useful? I have an outline understanding of the way that init starts up and forks for each terminal to present a login, etc, but I've yet to find anything that does a good job of explaining the way init starts and builds the environment for a graphical login and session, such as gdm and then a KDE session. Any guidance/links to good articles explaining this would be most welcome.

Thanks,

Peeper.

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