why is kdm running at all?

[J]

On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 21:45, NoOp <glgxg at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> the odd part is that the process PID changes each time:
> $ ps auw | grep kdm
> gg        6878  0.0  0.0   4008   752 pts/2    S+   18:43   0:00 grep
> --color=auto kdm

As has been said by Jeffrey Gray, you're seeing your own grep matching
the regex you're looking for in ps output.

Add another layer to that for kicks:

ps auw | grep kdm | grep -v grep

and notice the difference.