konqueror launching problems

[sngehl01]

I recently installed firefox

i typed

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install firefox

and it installed, and is in my program list

when i click it, nothing launches

before i installed firefox, konqueror worked great

now when i click konqueror it says this:

Configuration file "/home/nick/.kde/share/config/konquerororrc" not writeable. Please contact your system administrator.

Next I click ok, and Konqueror launches, but won't go to any websites

i'll be glad when i start becoming more familiar with linux

[sngehl01]

Re: konqueror launching problems

it does the same thing when i launch konsole and kopete ugh what did I do

[sngehl01]

Re: konqueror launching problems

i restarted my cpu, everything seems to be working fine. i swear im so dumb.

[dibl]

Re: konqueror launching problems

ugh what did I do

I think you did a "sudo" operation in your user's home folder, and changed the permissions on some hidden files.

Try deleting just the .ICEauthority and .Xauthority files, and then restarting the X server. Ctrl-Alt-F1 to the command line interface, and log in there. You will be logged in at your /home/sngehl01$ prompt.

sudo service kdm stop

rm .ICEauthority

rm .Xauthority

sudo service kdm start

and log back in. Try your browsers again.

[sngehl01]

Re: konqueror launching problems

ok, I didn't do what you said to do, I just restarted and it fixed it, should I do what you said to do anyway?

What are those files you said to delete? can you kinda explain what happened, and what can I do in the future to keep it from happening when I install something

thanks a bunch.

[dibl]

Re: konqueror launching problems

Well, if your browsers are starting correctly, don't change anything.

In your /home/user folder are a lot of configuration files, for the applications, and some general purpose ones. Some are "hidden" -- their names begin with a period.

It often happens that new users start downloading .deb files and installing them, and they use their /home/user folder. Of course installing software requires root privileges, so they "sudo" or "kdesu gdebi" or something. The hidden .ICEauthority and .Xauthority files control X server configuration for the user, but if their permissions settings are changed to "root", it's game over for the user, as far as logging into KDE. So, my concern was that something had happened to change those permissions on your system.

I don't understand why a reboot would have resolved the problem you had, but I would advise leaving well enough alone for now.