[gentoo-user] Problems starting KDE

[Jeff Cranmer <jeff@lotussevencars.com>]

I'm attempting to bring up a new system.  Processor is AMD Phenom 1055,
running on a Sabertooth 990FX motherboard.  Graphics card is an NVIDIA
GEForce GTX550Ti.

If I start X with twm, the xserver connection is made, and TWM comes up
correctly with three Xterm windows.  

I note that I get two errors reported,
(EE) NVIDIA: Failed to load module "dri2" (Module does not exist, 0)
/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc: line 62: xclock: command not found

The first error is definitely on startup, but the latter could have
appeared on exit.

I have a file 20-nvidia.conf in the /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d directory
with the following information

Section "Device"
  Identifier "Device0"
  Driver "nvidia"
  VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
  BoardName "GeForce GTX550 Ti"
  BusID "PCI:5:0:0"
  Screen 0
EndSection

Section "Module"
  Disable "dri"
  Disable "dri2"
  Load "glx"
EndSection

If I add exec startkde to the top of the /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc file,
then startx fails to start.  I get the same dri2 error as above, but
also get

startkde: Starting up...
Connecting to deprecated signal
QDBusConnectionInterface::serviceOwnerChanged(QString,QString,QString)
kded(13865): Communication Problem with "kded", it probably crashed.
Error message was: "org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NoReply" : " "Message did
not receive a reply (timeout by message bus)" "

I verified using /etc/init.d/dbus status that the dbus service is
running.  Same for consolekit.

/var/log/kdm.log shows one error, repeated for each startup attempt.
KCrash: Appication 'kdmgreet' crashing....
KCrash: Attempting to start /usr/lib64/kde4/libexec/drkonqi directly
Server Terminated successfully (0).  Closing log file.

Any assistance gratefully received.

Thanks

Jeff