[ale] Debian Sarge - no X unless root

[bluejay at speedfactory.net (Jim Seymour)]

I know I saw something about this same problem recently but cannot locate it.  
My installation will not boot into X unless I select Debian as the window 
manager and log in as root.  As user trying KDE I get the following error:

Could not read network connection list
/home/jim/.DCOPserver_localhost_0

Please check that "dcopserver" is running

If I try GNOME I get:

Could not find the GNOME installation

then

Cannot find "xterm" to start a failsafe session

Trying Debian as the window manager with user:

/etc/X11/Xsession: line 7: xrdb: Command not found

Since I am having to work under root I do not want to browse around on the 
web.  Any ideas anyone.  This is my first experience with Debian.

TIA,

Jim Seymour