well i reinstalled using the "beginner" profile, and now i can log in at least, though i am having a *host* of other problems. i tried installing with each of the other profiles and had the same problems, while the beginner option worked (after some adjustments).

for the record, i used the knoppix-installer script, and edited the .knofig file to mount /dev/hda4 at /home. i then saved the config as /root/.knofig, quit the installer, then started it again and loaded /root/.knofig. but that still did not change the /home directory to be /dev/hda4, so i guess it is still too experimental and has some bugs. i had to do mount the partition after booting and then reboot with it in the fstab before adding the new user account. if i added the new user after mounting but before rebooting, it wouldn't work. here is the line i am using in the fstab:
/dev/hda4 /home auto defaults,auto 1 2

the partition is reiserfs, and i had that in place of auto the first two times. i don't know if that would make a difference or not. i also had defaults,users not defaults,auto. so i don't know if one of those conditions was causing it, i'm only glad it's finally working.

the problems i'm still having are on the weird end of the spectrum, maybe mostly KDE-related, things like the keyboard keeps changing back to german after every reboot, a few programs open at boot automatically (mozilla, a konsole, and a konqueror file manager) the XF86Config problem with the touchpad remains after changing the config file a few different ways (that will probably be relatively easy to fix, however), bad fonts in mozilla, and so on. so there is a lot of work to be done, but i guess that's the way it is.

apologize for being so sarcastic. i have never used KDE before, or debian, but only slackware for a few months with fluxbox, which seems quite easy compared to this distro. i guess i was just frustrated b/c i didn't realize how different the two distros were, and it was going against my understanding to add something to the fstab and have it not work, etc. thanks for all your generous responses in light of my rudeness, i appreciate the recommendations and the link. i think since this is relatively a new install, i will try a reinstall again now that i know to use the beginner profile, and see if i can get rid of some of this kde problems. plus i would rather start from scratch at this point, because i don't remember if some of them started after upgrading with apt or were there before.

appreciate