[Sussex] (K)ubuntu - problems after move/install

[John D.]

Wotcha list,

Had some snags over the weekend with the kanotix that I was running (the main 
developer wants to use different repositories now, so the "co-developer" has 
started "Sidux" which _is_ based mainly on Debian Sid - as Kanotix used to 
be).

The weekly upgrade went really pear shaped, with my only way out i.e. having a 
working distro, was to install the Ubuntu 6.10 that arrived on the LXF Jan 07 
cover disc (and yes, due to my dislike of gnome, that was uninstalled and 
replaced with the Kubuntu desktop).

So to the problems. 

I did the install OK, then did any updates etc, but when it came to adding a 
new user so that my partner Clare can also login, it seemed to go OK except 
when we try her login, it just gives me an XDM error message (despite using 
KDE/KDM) "Could not start kstartupconfig. Check your installation". 

Why it might be giving me that error message is a complete mystery as doing an 
install and then adding an additional user is something I've done in exactly 
the same way before, without problems.

Also, "they" seem obsessed with bloody awful audio notifications/event sounds 
when stuff opens, closes, info boxes, all sorts of things. I've tried going 
through the kde notifications section of "system settings" and as far as I 
can tell, told it not to play sounds (I've only ever had the KDE start jingle 
previously, which isn't really a problem as it's only very occassional), but 
it's not "playing" i.e. it's _still_ playing these sound event "things".

Does anyone know how to switch these off, without affecting any other sound 
application(s)?

Finally (for the moment), when it comes to editing files, the general advice 
seems to be Alt-F2 kdesu konqueror - except when "it" won't allow me to open 
kate or kwrite or some other text editor and I can't suss out why it does 
that some times (despite having applied the password on request etc). This 
also is relevant, as I can't suss out how to edit files normally if the GUI 
isn't playing (like when the package manager dumps me with a kernel upgrade, 
as well as an nvidia driver upgrade at the same time and the video driver 
isn't prep'd for the new kernel). I've tried just doing (for example) sudo 
vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf but that seems to be acting in a really strange way 
(like it doesn't seem to want to allow me to just hit insert to make an edit 
and if I try to move the cursor with the arrow keys, it drops random (?) 
letters into the file that are difficult to remove).

Ok, enough questions for the moment, it seems that theres a hell of a lot of 
additional reading I have to do, for what is "alledged" to be one of the 
easiest distros to use. Though if you have any idea about the above ???'s 
then that would be excellent.

regards

John D.