Kate

[Nils Kassube]

Steven Vollom wrote:
> > > steven at Yeshua:~$ sudo kate
> > > [sudo] password for steven:
> > > Error: "/var/tmp/kdecache-steven" is owned by uid 1000 instead of
> > > uid 0. Error: "/tmp/kde-steven" is owned by uid 1000 instead of
> > > uid 0. Error: "/tmp/ksocket-steven" is owned by uid 1000 instead
> > > of uid 0.
>
> Thanks, I was advised, tried and it worked, kdesudo kate, but I still
> don't understand the error.  I have seen this before and no one ever
> has explained the comment uid 1000 instead of uid 0.  I believe I am
> user ID 1000, but I don't understand how User ID 0 comes into the
> picture.  Will you explain this a bit?  Thanks!  When I happens
> again, I would like to understand the comment.

Yes, you are user steven with UID 1000 and UID 0 is user root. When kate 
starts, it looks for links in the directory $HOME/.kde which point to 
the directories mentioned in your error messages. Those directories are 
supposed to be owned by the user starting kate. If you use sudo, the 
UID is 0 (for root) but the directories are owned by UID 1000 (steven).

If you use sudo, the $HOME environment variable points to /home/steven. 
Therefore kate finds the links in /home/steven/.kde pointing to the 
directories of the error messages. OTOH, if you use kdesudo instead, 
the environment variable $HOME is set to /root which is the home 
directory of the user root. There kate finds the appropriate 
directories which are actually owned by UID 0 (root) and therefore it 
doesn't complain but starts normally.

You can see the difference between the environment variables with these 
commands in a terminal:

sudo bash -c set >set1.txt
kdesudo "bash -c set" >set2.txt
diff -u set1.txt set2.txt >diff.txt
kate diff.txt

The first two commands write the environment variables to the files 
set1.txt and set2.txt and the third command compares the environments 
writing the output to diff.txt. Then kate opens that file and it shows 
the difference in red / blue. The important part is the HOME variable 
which is different. The other differences aren't important here.

Now, if you try to start kate with sudo instead of kdesudo it just 
refuses to start because of the possible problems it may cause if you 
want to start it without sudo later. Other programs may not complain 
and simply use the (wrong) $HOME variable to find the path to 
configuration files and change the ownership of the config files to 
make them owned by root. That will of course bite you later when you 
want to use the application as normal user. Therefore always use 
kdesudo instead of sudo to start graphical applications as user root.


Nils