How can I choose between KDE and GNOME at login?

You can use GDM to log into KDE, just change the session type in the session menu. If you are logged in, change session type to kde then log in as normal.

Easy when you know how ;)

Unluckily for both of us, there's no such option in the (current) gdm.

Yes it does, Look around the screen lad:

http://theblogjoint.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/gdm-options-small1.png
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/pics/gdm/gdm-login.jpg
http://book.opensourceproject.org.cn/distrib/ubuntu/movingtoubuntu/opensource/0321482395/images/gdm_sessions.jpg

What are all those then?

Mine is missing the KDE option ...

Aaah so the session menu is there, you said it wasn't. I thought we had a bigger issue. Oh well this is easy then. You need to manually add it:

From:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-software-2/how-to-start-kde-from-gdm-218335/

gksudo gedit /etc/X11/gdm/Sessions/KDE

Paste this code:

##############################
#!/bin/bash

exec /etc/X11/xdm/Xsession kde
##############################

Save the file and close gedit

sudo chmod +x /etc/X11/gdm/Sessions/KDE

Then log off, see if its there ;)

This looks good too:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2920

Good old MSN search :D

Here is my kde.desktop

http://pastebin.com/f270cc24

It is in :/usr/share/xsessions

andy@fileserver:/usr/share/xsessions$ ls -l ./kde.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3942 2009-05-22 06:13 ./kde.desktop

It is readable by all and writable by only the owner (root)

Current best approach is to create kde.desktop in /usr/share/xsessions (where it's actually missing):

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=KDE Session
Comment=Launch the beauty that is KDE
Exec=/usr/bin/startkde
Icon=
Type=Application

Everything seems to work until the system complains that there is no startkde in the whole filesystem.

Can you give the output of:

file /usr/bin/startkde

Looks like you are missing something

> Everything seems to work until the system complains that there is no startkde in the whole filesystem.
There's none.

$ file /usr/bin/startkde
Everything seems to work until the system complains that there is no startkde in the whole filesystem.

If file /usr/bin/startkde displays an error, you havent got the file and need to install something extra, can you please provide the output.

Thanks

The file is missing.

http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?searchon=contents&keywords=startkde&mode=exactfilename&suite=jaunty&arch=any

The missing package is named "kdebase-workspace-bin":
http://packages.ubuntu.com/fr/jaunty/kdebase-workspace-bin

I need to try this one.

Thanks actionparsnip, that solved my question.