>>Thanks for the suggestions.  Here's what I can tell you:
>
>The system did operate perfectly for some time
>Creating a new user doesn't work - same error message
>I can log-in users in console mode.  The error occurs when trying to use 
>KDE or Gnome.
>I'm not 100% sure it was KPPP that caused this but I did virtually no 
>customizing (I don't know how)
>
>I can find hardly any of the files that Zibby refered me to:
>
>I have no /etc/hosts nor /etc/hostname
>I can find only one error log.  That is home/carl/.xsession-error  It 
>doesn't look to contain any info that     would be helpful in this situation.
>
>Maybe I should just reinstall & try again being VERY careful?
>
>What I really want to do is get Tuxracer to work.  He works on my windows 
>drive but not in Linux.  This is at the very least immoral if not illegal!