Arch Linux

elasticdog

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From: Washington, USA

Registered: 2005-05-02

Posts: 995

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Xfce4 Can't Start File Manager or Settings w/Non-Super User

This is possibly a very stupid question, but I've been weeding through the forums and the wiki for a couple of hours now to no avail.  I've just installed Xfce and have it working in conjunction with GDM.  I can login just fine with my non-root account, but then I'm unable to adjust the Settings or load the File Manager as I am able to do when I login using root.

In the case of trying to load the Settings dialog box, I click on the icon in the panel, and it does absolutely nothing.  When I click on the File Manager icon, however, an hourglass appears as if it is trying to load, but then after about 30 seconds the hourglass disappears and nothing opens.

I have installed Firefox, and it works just fine under either account, and so I'm thinking it may be a simple permissions/groups problem...any thoughts?

elasticdog

Member

From: Washington, USA

Registered: 2005-05-02

Posts: 995

Website

Re: Xfce4 Can't Start File Manager or Settings w/Non-Super User

Now that I look at it, the taskbar also isn't working, and will show nothing even when multiple windows are open.  I've also looked in the Xfce forums, but there isn't a ton of info/activity there.

xerverius

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From: ~

Registered: 2004-11-02

Posts: 230

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Re: Xfce4 Can't Start File Manager or Settings w/Non-Super User

try to start xfce in the console (without gdm) en look if there are any errors...you can start it with startxfce4

elasticdog

Member

From: Washington, USA

Registered: 2005-05-02

Posts: 995

Website

Re: Xfce4 Can't Start File Manager or Settings w/Non-Super User

That did help...I get the same problems once I'm logged in, but once I ended the session, the console showed this error:

(xfdesktop5118): libxfce4util-CRITICAL **: Unable to create base directory /home/aaron/.cache/xfce4/desktop

...then it went on with more errors basically showing permission denied in that same base directory.  Any clue on which permissions I need to change for this user?  I haven't added myself into any groups, and have only followed the instructions given in Arch's Installation Guide and nothing beyond that as of yet.

elasticdog

Member

From: Washington, USA

Registered: 2005-05-02

Posts: 995

Website

Re: Xfce4 Can't Start File Manager or Settings w/Non-Super User

The ownership of both the .cache and .config directories for some reason belonged to root and not my user.  I completely wiped out those directories, and restarted Xfce while logged into my account and it seems to be working now.  Thanks for the help xerverius.

On a side note, I also noticed that the .local directory is also owned by root and not myself.  There is nothing in it currently but a share directory, but does the ownership need to be changed for this as well?  It's completely unrelated to the Xfce problem, but I thought it was a little strange...