updated current: kdm no longer starting

This is a laptop I'd not updated in a while. so when I did, I just picked replace all confs. nothing much was customoized so I figured no foul no harm.

updated-grub
reboot
no longin manager
startx works.
checked /etc/rc.d/rc.4 everything looks okay
checked all of the if statements to see what is there and what is not. got to kdm it is there.
Code:userx@slack14.2plus.gm:~
$ ls /etc/rc.d/rc.4.local
ls: cannot access '/etc/rc.d/rc.4.local': No such file or directory

$ ls /usr/bin/gdm
ls: cannot access '/usr/bin/gdm': No such file or directory

$ ls /usr/sbin/gdm
ls: cannot access '/usr/sbin/gdm': No such file or directory

$ ls /opt/kde/bin/kdm
ls: cannot access '/opt/kde/bin/kdm': No such file or directory

BINGO

$ ls /usr/bin/kdm
/usr/bin/kdm

$ /usr/bin/kdm
Only root wants to run kdmI've never had this issue before and do not know how to proceed.
(yes I know root starts the manager, I'm in user, and x is already started, I just did that last line to see what I'd see).