Problems with KDE3 on SuSE 8.0

Hi all,

I've started having a problem with KDE on SuSE 8.0. Everything was
generally working well, and I'd set up accounts for myself and the
family, thinking I'd move everyone over to Linux fairly quickly. I'd
had great success, including setting up desktops to include the
personal wallpapers and all the settings they'd used on Windows.

Then "something happened". It MAY be related to having attempted to
install wdm instead of kdm (I prefer it). This had been trivial under
Debian, so I just assumed it would work. At that point, X would take
forever to start up. I removed wdm, reinstalled most of KDE and all
seemed better. I can log into MY account and root under X just fine,
and all appears perfectly normal. However, NOBODY ELSE can. I didn't
realize this until someone was actually trying to USE this new system
I've been pushing of course.

On login, the KDE startup screen proceeds right up until just it says
loading window manager", then it pauses for a LONG time where it would
normally show the "loading desktop" message. Finally, it just quits,
and the user is dropped to a blank, grey screen with the log display
showing. No dock appears and pressing mouse buttons has no effect.

I've tried creating a pristine user account with no improvement.

The same users can log in using twm or mwm just fine (except they hate
it).

System details: It's a pretty generic SuSE 8.0 install with the online
updates applied as of about a week ago. Hardware is dual-celeron 500
system with 512MB RAM and 60GB disk, running kernel 2.4.18-64GB-SMP.

Any ideas on where to start troubleshooting KDE appreciated. I think
I've narrowed it down to something breaking within KDE, but I'm not
sure where to start.

Any help appreciated. Thanks,

- Bob

DISCLAIMER: I know there are a multitude of reasons not to use either
KDE or SuSE. I'm trying to learn both assuming they will be common.
Normally I'm a Debian guy working at the shell prompt.