well, i know (sort of) what is wrong. the app is hanging because it doesn't have permission to open the display. i proved this by running /usr/bin/linuxconf_kdesu manually (in verbose mode). And doing 'xhost +' makes everything work again. which begs the question of "how did i pooch things"? one clue: i had changed IP addresses, which didn't seem to get everything changed properly via linuxconf (i had to fiddle some things manually).
- [expert] Your message has been deleted Dan Swartzendruber
