I’m having an ongoing issue that I’m losing ownership of my home partition after using Yast2 to install or update software, or sometimes if I use Dolphin in SU mode as root.
When updating or installing software, and after, when it says “setting up linker cache”, that’s taking notably a lot longer than it has historically, whether that’s related too?
When this occurs, if I log out, then in again, it’s says KDE cannot start due to not having write access to my /home directory.
When it happens, permissions on /home are root:root, so I’ve been logging in as root from the command line, then chown -R my directory back to me before then logging in as user then starting X.
that most often happens when your ~/.ICEauthority and/or
~/.Xauthority files get damaged by logging into KDE not as yourself,
but as root…a practice which should never be done…
as far as i know it is impossible to damage either of those files by
using YaST…
i have never seen it, but it MAY be possible to do by using Dolphin,
but i doubt it…especially not if you are first signing into KDE as
yourself, and then launching Dolphin from a terminal (or Alt+F2) using
this string
No, if I ever use Dolphin in SU mode, I usually just launch it from the Kicker Menu ‘Dolphin Super User Mode’, I’ve never launched if from the command line, but this has definite;y happened purely by using Yast2, as I’ve suspected that’s what it was, then carried out a test process to prove it to myself. It seems ONLY to happen if I carry out something as root with the GUI, if I run a zypper update or install from the command line, it doesn’t happen.
Regarding the X Authority file, that’s interesting, because the first time I noticed this happening, was when I tried to save a document to /home and got refused because of permissions, so I tried to change the permissions as root from the command line whilst logged in X as user, and it wouldn’t let me change permissions of the ICEAuthority & XAuthority files.
Is it possible for these files to stay corrupted after a reboot? Can I delete them and remake them? Any way to edit them and fix errors or anything?
Okay, tried this morning as root at the login prompt “rm -f /home/Beth/.ICEAuthority” and also “rm -f /home/Beth/.XAuthority” and then logged into KDE normally as user, everyhitng ok.
Uninstalled, then reinstalled Amarok from Yast2, then immediately logged out, then when I tried to log back in again, I get the error, “KDE Cannot start, no write access to /home directory, KDM Caanot Start”.
Any idea what criteria is written to the ICE and X Authority files when they’re recrerated? Is this a rogue application maybe?
Is there any way to check when, and by what application the permissions were changed? Logfiles?
Also, in my /home directory, there is one .XAuthority filed, and then 4 other files .xauthgg71jc .xauthDWzV5A .xauth30AKdo .xauth1IBCop, are they related to .xauthority do you know?
Just to add, I decided to clean out KDE, upgraded to 4.2, and everything is fine now, apart from I’m looking to get KDM themed, which is proving to be a nightmare!