On Thu, 2012-10-11 at 16:28 -0400, John A. Sullivan III wrote: 
> On Thu, 2012-10-11 at 22:01 +0200, Sl�vek Banko wrote: 
> > On Thursday 11 of October 2012 21:52:48 John A. Sullivan III wrote:
> > > Thank you both, Slavek and Tim.  I had tried re-running apt-get update
> > > and then apt-get dist-upgrade but that did not help.  I just followed
> > > Slavek's advice and was surprised to see that packages were removed
> > > rather than upgraded:
> > >
> > > root@denise:~# dpkg --configure -a
> > > root@denise:~# aptitude dist-upgrade
> > > The following packages will be REMOVED:
> > >   gs{u} kdesdk-scripts-trinity{u} kpilot-trinity{u}
> > > libavahi-compat-libdnssd1{u} libavahi-qt3-dev{u} libdbus-qt-1-1c2{u}
> > > libkjsembed1-trinity{u} libogg-dev-la{u} libpisock9{u} libpoppler-qt2{u}
> > > libsensors3{u} libxxf86misc1{u}
> > >
> > > However, it has not fixed the problem.  The TDE splash screen appears
> > > stuck on starting system services and, behind it, is an error message
> > > about could not start kdeinit :(  What next? Thanks - John
> > >
> > >
> > 
> > Try to remove from /tmp folders kde-_your_login_ and ksocket-_your_login_.
> > 
> > Slavek
> Alas, that did not work.  I should mention that I had previously
> rebooted the system (the advantage of it being test).  I removed
> the /tmp files/directories pertinent to my ID; that did not work.  I
> deleted all files in /tmp; that did not work.  I deleted all files
> in /tmp and rebooted again.  That did not work :(  Next step?
> 
> Would it make sense to uninstall and reinstall TDE? What would be the
> best way to do that without deleting my configuration? apt-get remove
> kdebase-trinity? Thanks - John
<snip>
Argh!! Uninstalling and reinstalling did not help.  Now I am a bit stuck
- although it is test, it is also a development system and we need to 
get back on it! What shall I try next? 

I did pick up this error in user.log regarding pulseaudio:
Unable to contact D-Bus:
org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Spawn.ExecFailed: /usr/bin/dbus-launch
terminated abnormally with the following error: Autolaunch error: X11
initialization failed.

Is there a log file where I can see more details about why kdeinit is
failing? Thanks - John