After cpu was installed with rh71/kde2, our nis users would be asked if they wanted there kde1 files to be converted, removed, or ingored. If remove or convert is picked kde2 dies saying could not read connection list /home/dave/.DCOPserver_dexter_0:0 please check that the "dcopserver" program is running. If you pick ignor kde2 starts ok. In trying to track down the problem we noticed that root could not delete files that it owned that were on a NFS mount. We also notcied that the files in .kde director for each user were owned by root. This is were the problem for kde2 is, it can not remove or convert these files because they are owned by root and are on a NFS automount. We have not found out which version created these files with root owning them. We have a SGI origin200 serving our nis and automount. We have been using RH 60 61 62 and 70 with no problem. We can work around by deleteing .kde before a user trys to login in to rh71 for the first time.
We don't (and can't) create those files owned by root anywhere (if we did this, it would mean we're allowing users to create files as root). If the .kde files are not writable, KDE 1.x didn't work well either (users couldn't save their settings). This must be a local setup problem. By any chance, did someone chown those files on your system to prevent users from messing up their desktop, or did someone cp -aR /etc/skel/.kde ~usename as root?