In the latest rawhide /etc/X11/xinit/Xclients, it looks like this is missing a "fi". PREFERRED= if [ -f /etc/sysconfig/desktop ]; then . /etc/sysconfig/desktop if [ "$DESKTOP" = "GNOME" ]; then PREFERRED=gnome-session elif [ "$DESKTOP" = "KDE" ]; then PREFERRED=startkde fi <---- here fi