mozilla will only run as root, not user

[laughingbuddha]

Hello, friends. First of all, I know nothing. Absolutely nothing. I am a moderately intelligent person who simply wants a stable and reliable computer. To this end, I recently installed Suse 9.1 with the help of a more experienced linux user. I understand the bare, minimum basics, such as this is a mouse, this is a file, this is a directory, etc. Most importantly, I can follow directions; I do have a modicum of understanding when it comes to terminal commands and whatnot. But again, I know nothing.

I enjoy mouse gestures. They are good. Thus, I attempted to install them on my computer. Believing--rightfully or wrongfully--that i needed to be logged in as root to install mouse gestures (is this correct? that is, do i need to be root to install stuff?), i logged out as user as logged in as root...although maybe i just switched users. i cannot remember. perhaps it doesn't matter. anyways, installation under root was successful. mozilla runs and the glorious mouse gestures work as they should, but only as root. when i log in as user and attempt to launch mozilla, it simply thinks for a minute, and then disappears. no browser window, just a mozilla bar on the taskbar and then it's gone.

what, dear gods, i have i done wrong? please forgive my noobishness and offer me some words of wisdom. thank you.

[madcompnerd]

Little expansions to things like firefox/galeon/epiphany.

[X_console]

First, yes you do have to be root to install most things. Second, it doesn't matter if you login as root or switch users.

Your problem seems to be more of a permissions error. Can you open up a terminal and then launch Mozilla from there? I believe the command is mozilla

If it says permission denied, you'll need to change the permissions on the mozilla executable. Do a which mozilla and it'll return the location of the executable. Run ls -l on this path and make sure it's not a symbolic link (or "shortcut" if you prefer). If it is, then the symbolic link will point to the actual executable.

Once you've tracked down the actual executable, use ls -l again to see the permissions. If it is not -rwxr-xr-x then run the following command on the file: chmod 755 mozilla (or whatever the file is called).

[laughingbuddha]

nothing happens whatsoever when i type mozilla in the console--it just returns to user@linux:~>. i didn't really understand your other recommendations, although i tried them. which mozilla tells me the file is in user/bin/mozilla. ls -l returns a bunch of stuff i don't really understand - it looks like a list of the folders in my user directory. why would installing mouse gestures as root cause mozilla not to work as user? that doesn't make sense. and why would installing mouse gestures as root create a permissions problem as user? why didn't the mouse gestures that i installed as root destroy my user mozilla.

i'm confused and frustrated. please help.

[chrism01]

X_console meant this sort of thing:

cd /usr/bin
ls -l mozilla
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 5799 Jan 24 2004 mozilla

which shows that mozilla works for everybody.
If yours does not look like this, do as he suggested with the chmod cmd (you'll need to be root to do this).

[laughingbuddha]

argh! i hate to be a burden, but i'm not getting this to work. mozilla still will only run as root (with mouse gestures) and not as user. please help. i'll go through what i've been doing:

switch user to root
open konsole
and then:
linux:~ # which mozilla
/usr/bin/mozilla
linux:~ # cd /usr/bin
linux:/usr/bin # ls -l mozilla
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 Sep 11 13:04 mozilla -> /opt/mozilla/bin/mozilla.sh

so i do this:
linux:/usr/bin # cd /opt/mozilla/bin
linux:/opt/mozilla/bin # ls -l mozilla.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 6603 Apr 5 23:08 mozilla.sh
linux:/opt/mozilla/bin # chmod 755 mozilla.sh
linux:/opt/mozilla/bin #

nothing happens. mozilla still won't run as user. what am i doing wrong? is it the .sh mozilla and the non-.sh mozilla issue? i haven't the foggiest. please, help me!

[chrism01]

How exactly are you starting mozilla as a user? Do you get any error msgs, either on screen or in eg /var/log/messages?
Try opening an xterm and running it from the cmd line just to check ie
cd /usr/bin
./mozilla

and see what happens.
You may find /opt/mozilla is owned by root, so user doesn't have access.
Try
chmod 755 /opt/mozilla
On the other hand, if mozilla had been installed in /usr/bin, instead of /opt, you prob wouldn't have this problem.
/opt is a good place to download new SW, but during the install, you are usually asked where you want it put ie installed to.
I downloaded mozilla into /opt, but installed into /usr/local.
HTH

[laughingbuddha]

chris, there are no error messages, nothing happens. i have no idea what's going on. i tried to do exactly as you suggested, to no avail. mozilla still won't run as user.

would deleting mozilla and then reinstalling it fix this problem? i attempted this process by myself by via yast2 but the error messages i received under "check dependencies" scared me off. can you walk me through the uninstallation or help me out with the dependencies, i.e., tell me which files can be deleted, which should stay, etc.? i need some help!

[chrism01]

Never used Suse or Yast, so I can't be very specific, you really need someone who has.

BTW, when I said try it from the cmd line, you did use the dot-slash ( ./ ) right?
That's for when its not in your cmd PATH:
echo $PATH
to find out.

You have to specify the fullpath if it isn't. " ./" is for when you are in the dir with the executable, otherwise give it the whole path eg
/usr/local/mozilla

I'd be tempted to check if you have another browser avail. Most Distros come with more than one eg Konqueror and Mozilla.
If so, remove all instances of mozilla and/or firefox as root (via Yast or manually).
Also check root's home dir ie
/root
and you user's home dir eg
/home/fred
for hidden dirs ie beginning with "." eg
.mozilla
.netscape
.firefox

Use
ls -a
to see them.

Remove all of them, then use Yast to install from scratch, or Konqueror to goto mozilla.org and install from there.
Be aware of this vuln warning on slashdot.org:

Posted by timothy on Wednesday September 15, @02:34PM
from the you-do-have-a-recent-one-right dept.
d3ik writes "An advisory has been issued on several buffer overflow exploits in the Mozilla and Thunderbird code. Coincidentally, one of the exploits takes advantage of a unchecked buffer in the bitmap parser, very similar to recent Microsoft JPEG vulnerability. The good news is that if you have an updated version (Mozilla 1.7.3, Firefox 1.0PR, Thunderbird 0.8) you won't be affected."

Any Suse/Yast experts reading this please help this guy in more detail.

HTH

[palsyboy]

Thanks for the help, everyone. I'm the "more experienced" Linux user who helped install SuSE 9.1 on laughingbuddha's machine. Of course, as many here know, I'm still quite a newbie myself, who's had good experiences with SuSE overall, tried & failed on Slackware 10, and am currently at the end of a halted Gentoo install. But despite my faults, I know I can make at least a basically working computer with SuSE, even if I don't have the experience to do everything perfectly. And laughingbuddha himself is, like me, a Windows power user trying to use Linux, and he built his own machine, so I don't know about him knowing "nothing." :p I only recently heard through a mutual friend that he was having troubles with Mozilla, so I popped on over to his place.

I figured he was having trouble with permissions, and I knew to rearrange some of the group executable permissions in /opt/mozilla, but I didn't realize that there was a soft link in /usr/bin. After changing the permissions on those files to everyone being able to read and execute, everything was fine. Even the gestures ran like a charm. :)

chrism01: As for SuSE, it's a very proprietary distro with most of the homework done for the end user. I'm sure there's a way to install Mozilla into /usr (after all, Linux always seems to give you ultimate ability to do anything you want), but YaST automatically puts into /opt/mozilla and then makes that link in /usr/bin. I also find this to be weird but don't have the knowledge to do anything about it yet. Maybe someday I'll get this all figured out... ;)