Sanity-Check-2 Error with Linux MATE Install

[Hanson]

I've only been using Linux for about 3 months, so I'm basically a noob. I'm dual booting Ubuntu 11.10 along with Win 7. I tried to install the MATE desktop today and after reboot i get a blank screen with the following error:

There is a problem with the configuration server ( /usr/lib/MateConf/mateconf-sanity-check-2 exited with a status 256).

I read in another forum that this "sanity check" error can sometimes mean that ownership and/or permissions for the /tmp directory may be out of whack? Anyway, I tried changing ownership of /tmp back to root - (chown root:root /tmp) and giving everyone read/write/execute to /tmp, (chmod a+rwx /tmp) (doing this in recovery mode), but still same result. What I don't understand, is, after entering each command I'm told /tmp is read only! I'm clearly logged in as root, so I don't get it.
Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[xenopeek]

Moved here by moderator

I'm correct in assuming you are trying to install MATE on Ubuntu? Then please get support from the Ubuntu forums

[mgfmlkd]

I have this problem on a fresh install and the top bar is missing in mate