10.04 broke my kubuntu, how to fix?

[Charlie Zender]

Hi All,

Maybe someone will know how to get my kubuntu setup working with 10.04.
It worked perfectly with 9.10, and the 10.04 network upgrade proceeded
normally until the kdm login screen. kdm starts and accepts my
password, but then kdm fails to start the KDE desktop. During the kdm
transition to the KDE desktop, when the five icons fade into view, the
desktop crashes (I surmise) as the first icon (the hard disk) fades
into view. This crash appears to restart kdm and I am kicked back to
the login screen. Repeat ad nauseam.

Hardware is a Dell Precision m6400 laptop in a docking station.
Laptop is closed and two 30" Dell displayport monitors, configured as
one logical desktop with nvidia-settings into a Twinview
configuration. But the same problem occurs when I disconnect the
external monitors and just use the LCD. Also I tried using the "nv"
and "nouveau" drivers instead of nvidia.

Any ideas on how I can start KDE?
Where can I find the relevant error messages?
Would it help to uninstall KDE and then re-install KDE?
How would I do that?

I want to avoid re-installing Ubuntu from scratch.

Thanks,
Charlie
-- 
Charlie Zender, Department of Earth System Science
University of California, Irvine (949) 891-2429 :)