Trouble with my .xsession and .xinitrc files

[Michael McElroy <millennial@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hey gang. I've just finished installing Gentoo on a Pentium 4 box, and 
everything seems to work fine. Internet works, boot sequence is perfect, 
X server launches properly. Just one problem.

I've emerged KDE, Gnome, and Fluxbox. I put in the proper commands to 
launch them when X starts (I think) in my .xinitrc file. For example, 
for KDE I put
"startkde &".

Is there something wrong with this? I ask because when I run 'startx', I 
get the following messages:
(X Window System version info, OS version info, build date info)
Module Loader present
Markes: (etc etc)
(==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Fri Apr  1 12:48:34 2005
(==) Using config file: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf" (properly configured using 
the automated configuration tool, tested and appears to be working in a 
WM-less environment)
Using vt 7
Could not init font path element /usr/share/fonts/local, removing from list!

At this point it crashes and dies. I know that the last message isn't 
the cause; it does that even without the .xinitrc file and it runs fine 
then.
/var/log/Xorg.0.log gives me nothing - the font warning is the last line 
in it. Same for /var/log/Xorg.1.log and /var/log/Xorg.8.log, if those 
are at all relevant.

The emerge logs for KDE and the other WMs seem fine. Any idea why such a 
simple command as "startkde &" or "startfluxbox &" could cause X to fail 
completely? Does the .xinitrc file have to be chmodded to something that 
I'm not aware of?

Help meeeee!
--Mike McElroy