Yast software manager, permissions errors

Just installed OS 12.1 x86_64

The initial first few updates went ok, but then I tried to install some packages and failed. The software manager gives ‘permission error: cannot enter directory’

Tried again after a reboot, same thing

The original plan being to install Tumbleweed I thought I’d try that and see if there were any errors there, went smoothly

Tried software manager again after the reboot, same error, so I decided to try installing something with zypper and ran ‘zypper in kernel-source’

That worked fine, I then tried installing gcc using apper, that also worked fine

So it seems that my system’s permissions are fine and the problem lies with yast’s software manager itself, is it now obsolete/deprecated now that apper’s been brought in?

Wondering whether it’s a known issue and if I can just ignore it and use zypper & apper or whether it’s cause for concern

Please be sure you are using
Yast > Software > Software Management

Sorry to be so slow, I started the thread at silly o’ clock this morning just before going to bed

Yes caf4926 it is Yast > Software > Software Management I’m referring to, I have just confirmed that the textmode version of yast software manager doesn’t have the problem, but the yast2 gui version does

Just discovered something curious about it, if I open konsole and run ‘kdesu yast2’ and then open Software > Software Management, it will install packages just fine, it’s just when I open either open Yast itself or Install/Remove Software off the menu the problem presents itself so I opened kde’s menu editor and took a look at the command which is:

/usr/bin/xdg-su -c /sbin/yast2

I’ve had apps requiring root permissions using xdg-su in it’s command on the menu fail to run properly before, suse studio image writer and ati/nvidia settings apps spring to mind. In those cases I solved it by removing the xdg-su part of the command and using the advanced tab of the menu editor entry to select ‘run as different user’ and enter root as the user

Tried the same thing with Yast and the Install/Remove Software entries and it didn’t work on these, so I thought if kdesu yast2 works from a console, will it work as the command on the menu entry, the answer is no

I’ve used the Yast2 gui to set nis logins and some nfs exported shares and they worked flawlessly so it does appear to be just the Software Management module and not ‘everything Yast’, it’s like the software manager doesn’t ‘realise’ it’s running as root when starting it ‘normally’

I have not seen what you describe. Everything here has worked perfectly.
But I have only used:

  1. zypper
  2. Yast > Software > Software Management

There were some updates to the package management immediately after release.

I’m getting it when I run it by typing a command in a console now as well

So now if I don’t wanna use zypper, which is fine sometimes but a bit unwieldy when you want to search for packages, I can’t use Yast > Software > Software Management at all except in textmode, which again can be somewhat unwieldy

That leaves me with Apper which is pretty much another frontend for packagekit and enough’s been said about that already (though I’ve used it as a frontend to Arch’s pacman and it seemed ok there)

I’ve seen this today as well. I aborted, ran the update through zypper from the shell. Funny thing is, that there is not much detail on which folder is concerned.

No detail at all on the folder here Knurpht

As it’s freshly installed and I’ve not really put masses of time into configuring things yet I’m considering re-installing from a different media just to see if I get the same thing, this time round I installed off a live usb so I may start a new net install run last thing tonight

Any one that has had this should perhaps mention it in the Mailing List

I’m sorry? What is the “Mailing List”? That sounds vaguely ominous… isn’t this the support forum, and not some unspecified Mailing List?

I get this error every time I try to install packages using YaST Software Management as a regular user (logged in via LDAP). I do not get this error if I log in as root first and then run YaST as root. It’s been very frustrating so far.

Leave it with me. I suggested the ML because it’s where the devs reside.

I visited the IRC and it doesn’t appear to be something that has come up in discussions there.
I’ll keep looking

Please everyone.
Make absolutely sure we are on the same page and

  1. Please run zypper up
  2. Confirm that we are talking about: Yast > Software > Software Management

yes to all, error continues

Have you checked in the Menu editor
For the Yast launcher
The command should be

/usr/bin/xdg-su -c /sbin/yast2

yep, that is indeed the command being run when I start YaST from the menu.

question: where do downloaded packages get saved to? The packages all download fine, the error message only occurs during the installation phase.

/var/cache/zypp/packages/

The packages all download fine, the error message only occurs during the installation phase.
I didn’t notice that mentioned before, sorry.

On 2011-11-22 07:06, caf4926 wrote:

> Code:
> --------------------
> /usr/bin/xdg-su -c /sbin/yast2
> --------------------

Try “su -”.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

Then it doesn’t prompt for a password (unless I’m using that at the command line)

On 2011-11-22 19:16, puregore wrote:
> Then it doesn’t prompt for a password (unless I’m using that at the
> command line)

Obviously. But it works.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)