how to add kde-nightly as kdm session type

[budr]

Running jaunty with kde 4.2.95 from backports. Everything looks great, no problems there. I also have kde-nightly installed from Project Neon. It conveniently installs in /opt/kde-nightly, and uses ~/.kde-nightly for config info, so it doesn't interfere with a working kde or kde4 installation. Using the little .bashrc trick from KDE Techbase I can run individual programs from the nightly build. So far so good.

I recently added gnome-desktop for my better half who prefers gnome to kde. It added gnome as a menu item at the kdm login screen. What I would like to do is add kde-nightly as a kdm menu item so I can run kde-nightly as a complete session rather than one program at a time. I've wandered around /etc/X11 and /etc/kde4, but it's not obvious to me how to add a session type. Any pointers to a howto or other docs on the subject would be most appreciated.

[integr8e]

Re: how to add kde-nightly as kdm session type

Look in your /usr/share/kde4/apps/kdm/sessions/ directory: you should see a kde.desktop file. As root, make a copy of it and rename the copy to something like "kde-nightly.desktop" via:

# cp /usr/share/kde4/apps/kdm/sessions/kde.desktop /usr/share/kde4/apps/kdm/sessions/kde-nightly.desktop

Then, open the kde-nightly.desktop file with your favorite text editor (I'm going to use Kate):

kdesudo kate /usr/share/kde4/apps/kdm/sessions/kde-nightly.desktop

Change the path to the startkde script from /usr/bin/startkde to wherever Project Neon installed it, probably /opt/kde-nightly/bin/startkde, and change the name to something more descriptive of your installation, like "KDE Nightly":

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Type=XSession
Exec=/opt/kde-nightly/bin/startkde
TryExec=/opt/kde-nightly/bin/startkde
Name=KDE Nightly
Comment=The K Desktop Environment. A powerful Open Source graphical desktop environment
X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain=desktop_kdebase-workspace

Log out, and you should then be able to log in to a full KDE Nightly session!

[kubicle]

Re: how to add kde-nightly as kdm session type

The package 'kde-nightly' should install kde4-neon.desktop file to /usr/share/xsessions automatically. If you don't have that, try (re)installing kde-nightly first.

If you have the file, but kde-neon does not show up on kdm, check your /etc/kde4/kdm/kdmrc to see if you have a modified SessionDirs variable (by default it should check /usr/share/xsessions)

[budr]

Re: how to add kde-nightly as kdm session type (RESOLVED)

Thanks, integr8te and kubicle. I figured it out myself with a little more poking around.