# K/Ubuntu: Firefox only runs with sudo



## Gir (Aug 7, 2004)

Hey guys, question for you-- (disregard any computer stats in my profile, that was from like four years ago :tongue: )

I am currently exclusively running Kubuntu 6.06 Dapper on my computer. I've installed the newest version of Firefox (not the one that comes in the ubuntu repositories) but when I try to open it... it doesn't. It appears to be loading, as the cursor changes into the little bouncing icon you get in KDE... but then it disappears and it just doesn't open at all. If I go into the terminal and type "Firefox" it doesn't do anything either. If I type "sudo firefox", though, it opens.

I also get an error message when I run "sudo firefox"; I don't know if this error is related or not:


```
X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 154
  Major opcode:  143
  Minor opcode:  3
  Resource id:  0x0
Failed to open device
X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 154
  Major opcode:  143
  Minor opcode:  3
  Resource id:  0x0
```
I think this has to do with the tablet devices that are automatically enabled in 'buntu but when I try to comment them out it causes even more problems, so I just leave them in.

I'm not sure what's going on, but any advice would be appreciated, because I don't like the idea of using sudo every time I run Firefox. I don't have this problem on my other computer that runs the same Kubuntu 6.06 and installed Firefox the same way. Thank you in advance!!


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

Hi,

Type this command:

```
sudo killall firefox
```
And see if it will open as a regular user after that. If that doesn't work, you should try and reinstall Firefox.


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## Gir (Aug 7, 2004)

Thanks for the reply,

I tried sudo killall firefox and it didn't do anything. So I reinstalled Firefox and I'm still having the same problem.


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

Reboot and see if it works.


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## hal8000 (Dec 23, 2006)

From a terminal type
which firefox

this will give you the path name of firefox (probably /usr/bin/firefox)

then as a normal user try
/usr/bin/firefox (replace /usr/bin with the path from the which command)
this may provide some useful output...

failing that it may well be to do with the tablet device, you could try reconfiguring the xserver and see if you can disable the tablet devices from there. You may have to log into an alternate console so try
ctrl-alt-f1 (log in as root)

dpkg-reconfigure xorg-xserver

(this has worked for me with Ubuntu Edgy-Eft)
Hope that helps


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## Gir (Aug 7, 2004)

Thanks for the replies. I rebooted and it still didn't work, and I was also able to fix the tablet thing so it no longer shows that error. It still didn't work, though.

Then I found out that the .mozilla folder that had firefox in it had its permissions set root-root, so I did chown on it and changed it to my regular username, and it works now


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

Glad you solved it. I will learn from your solution, so thanks for posting. BTW, any folder or file in your home folder should not have root permissions, so if anything does, you can change it.


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