broke system

[bmike101 at cox.net]

stoopid mee!
I decided to fix what I didn't need to (upgrade really) and now the system doesn't work as well. 

I ran 'apt-get install kmail' and that made it so it wouldn't automatically load 'x' and when I run 'startx' I don't get to choose my wm but rather have to know which one I need  to run. I think the wm I am given when I type 'startx' is 'failsafe'. (but what do I know) To open directly into the wm I want would I type 'startx icewm' (for example)?

I think upgrading kmail was a bad thing! So now I'm doing 'apt-get upgrade' in the hopes that will 'fix' it (not that I know what I'm doing). 

If this doesn't 'fix' it I think I will set it to 'stable' and do a 'dist-upgrade'. Does this sound like a good plan? Do you think that after what I'm doing currently  is done I should try to get it to work the way it is because a stable dist-upgrade is a superfluous..... errrrr.... extravegant step?