Ummm Mark you might be incorrect. It is not necessary to login and get a complete KDE desktop session to run application as root. From that first link:
Quote Originally Posted by Markus
If you try to login to KDE as root it won't work. You should never login to KDE as root as it's a security risk.
To do root stuff you can use:
- sudo
- su
- sux
- kdesu kedit (or some other app)
From that second link, you mentioned that you can't login as root. Its a function of KDM since it locks root from loggin in. So follow echo2geek's advice at http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtop...?p=80355#80355

This is why I suggested to run kdesu. You can try it yourself. Boot knoppix from CD. Open a konsole command prompt window. Since root user password is scrambled/locked by default, use the command 'su -' to become root user. Run 'passwd' & set a new password for root. Run 'exit' to escape from root user. Now run kdesu to run an application: kdesu konqueror /path/to/folder/
It will popup a dialog & ask you for the root password. Once you give it the root password, konqueror will run as root and will have full authority as root.