I found the configuration problem, this may be of interest to others.

[mike]

Hi Luke and List. I just found the problem with the configuration server.
Luke, I remembered that I tried a feature I saw in Orca in the root account. Orca now has it's own box you can check to have it start when you login. I did this in the root account, but not in my account because I had speech enabled when I installed intrepid.
Anyway, wondering if that was the problem, I unchecked that box in Orca in the root account. Guess what? The problem went away.
The strange thing is this happened on my laptop. But I also have the login box in Orca checked in the root account on my desktop and have had no problems.
The only thing I can think of is the installation on the laptop was done using a older live CD. But I do have all updates.
Anyway, apparently the check box in Orca can cause problems. By the way, I never did get that message when logging in to the root account.
Mike.