gnome and kde (and ppp)

[mazdaracer]

In a similiar vein, I loaded Mandrake 7.1 onto my AMD K6 powered system.
I'm usually using KDE and haven't attempted Gnome.  I am, however,
having problems getting onto the net via modem. I get the dreaded 'pppd
daemon failed unexpectedly' error when I bring up kppp.

I tried to switch to Gnomeppp but after entering the login/phone/etc, it
didn't save it!
I did get it saved at one point, but have no idea how it happened!

BTW, I downloaded the latest ppp RPM from the Mandrake site and I at
least was able to get the error eliminated. But know Netscape (4.73)
will not connect. Any ideas? I'm using an Aceex DM-56V14 that has a
hardware controller.

And one more thing while I'm at it ... I've a (company) Dell Latitude
laptop that has the same Mandrake load. When I start KDE, I get an error
that .Xauthority cannot be written. I ctl-c and KDE launches ok.  I
tried changing permissions to that of my main machine but it really
hangs then and I wait for it to time-out. 

I really like Linux, yes I do!

pete (or the German version, peter):)