Your "$HOME/.bash_profile" script is not sourced (executed) when you start KDE with KDM.
The reason for this is that the Xsession file does not source it. It contains the line:
$HOME/.profile
This needs to be changed to:
$HOME/.bash_profile
There is a bug on this which was closed as invalid.
I have reopened it:
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=53345
Note: this only applies if you built from source.
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