Lost (partially) administrative privileges [apparently solved]

[xfrank]

Hi, I don't remeber how, but I partially lost my privileges as administrator. Yes, I can enter the terminal with sudo, and perform some taks like update the system and install whatever, but I cannot run any program as administrator, for example. I cannot figure out what is happening here.
When I try to open a folder in Nemo with root (I have LM17.3 Cinnamon) I cannot do that, either directly or in the terminal.
For example, when I try:

Code: Select all

xfrank-ThinkPad-T440p xfrank # gedit
No protocol specified

(gedit:5652): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display: :0.0

or

Code: Select all

xfrank-ThinkPad-T440p xfrank # pinta
No protocol specified

(Pinta:5705): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display: :0.0

And when I try to check the administrative privileges in the settings manager (user and groups):

No se pudo ejecutar /usr/share/cinnamon/cinnamon-settings-users/cinnamon-settings-users.py como usuario root.

No es posible copiar el archivo Xautorization del usuario.

In spanish, that is... a warning about root autorization, and specifically a "Xautorization" problem.

The same happens with ALL the options that requires root privileges in the settings manager, for example for the ""ventana de inicio sesion" (starting session window):

No se pudo ejecutar /usr/sbin/mdmsetup como usuario root.

No es posible copiar el archivo Xautorization del usuario.

I'm pretty lost, maybe it's just a stupid thing, but I cannot figure how to solve this problem...

----update few minutes ago:

seems partially solved after running "startx" in the terminal. This way I could access to the forbidden services and added my profile to some more groups. Then rebooted, and mysteriously I regained some lost privileges. But what is that? I would like to learn, not just be happy because a problem is (apparently) solved...

----update:

i will add "apparently solved" to the title, I'll see if the problem persists, but anyway, I'm curious to know what could be the cause of this problem.

[tovian]

I'm getting in over my head here, but I have a thought for you...

Since this issue was partially solved by entering "StartX" it sounds like the machine you were having the problem with MIGHT be running Wayland as the Display Server. It is different from the XWindow system and has terminated certain (administrative) capabilities (especially in the area of running apps with Administrator privileges). I found this very same behavior when testing the latest Kubuntu live session. One of the workarounds I read about was reverting to XServer to restore the lost functionality.

My recommendation: I can only suggest that you could do a little more research in this area. I'm sorry I cannot provide links to any useful sites. Just try some searches on topics like "wayland can't run apps as administrator".

[xfrank]

Thanks Tovian!
Probably you are right, there is a display server problem here (because "x" seems to be the culprit). I will do more research on this matter. I found the "startx" solution on a forum, and apparently worked. Then, with privileges regained (temporally?) I added my user profile to some groups and voilà, the problem disappeared.

Normally I can solve many problems by myself (I'm a "medium" skilled linux user) but this time I had to seek for help in the forum, and fortunately I have solved this problem trying this solution.

But anyway... many thanks for the help!