[kde-freebsd] FreeBSD 8.0-p2 KDE4 mostly works, no panel

[Bernard T. Higonnet]

Hello,

built the FreeBSD system with KDE ran it and everything was fine. Then I 
installed a variety of ports, mostly successful (e.g. Thunderbird, 
Firefox (Konqueror would crash a lot)). The next time I started KDE I 
got a bubble screen, then a rectangle with a disk drive, tools, a globe, 
desktop(?) icon, KDE icon in a small rectangle, and then just a blank 
screen, nothing else.

The only thing I can do is Alt-F2 which allows me to run applications 
like Thunderbird, Firefox, terminal, etc., and Ctrl-Alt-Del which allows 
me to logout. Can not find error messages anywhere. Was even able to 
install GIMP in this situation.

I do have a plasma-desktop.core file... (I can see how to install plasma 
widgets, but not re/install plasma)

Among the particularities afflicting me are:

1) If I try to launch a terminal window after alt-F2 it works roughly 
half the time (when it fails, terminal window appears and then disappears)
2) If I copy something (a link) and then try to use alt-tab to go to 
Firefox, both Firefox and Thunderbird go beserk, as if I were holding 
down the tab key.

I'd be perfectly happy to do a complete re-install of KDE except don-t 
know how. sysintall doesn't do that kind of thing, ports do nothing, and 
recompiling from code requires 22 downloads the way I see it, so I;m 
discouraged...

TIA
Bernard Higonnet