"Permission Denied" error for root user when perms are 0775?

[R. G. Newbury]

From: "R. G. Newbury" <newbury at mandamus.org>
Subject: "Permission Denied" error for root user when perms are 0775?
To: fedora-list at redhat.com
Message-ID: <48B27255.9030204 at mandamus.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

 >Weird problem.
 >I downloaded an svn version of mythtv, cd'd to the folder, and tried to
 >run './configure --help', Got a 'Permission Denied' error.

 >I am root and the permissions were and are 0775...chmod changes 
 >nothing,  even trying 0777.

 >Does anyone have any idea what is going on? The directory is on a 'rw'
 >partition, since I just downloaded to it, using a script. But the
 >configure script itself will not run. I changed the first line from:
 >#!/bin/sh    to #!/bin/bash  > no change.

More data points. I don't think this has anything to do with the 
'configure' script. It's an error in what bash is running. There is 
something wrong with the libraries, I think.

Backing up a little. This is a brand new install of Fedora 8. I ended up 
wiping everything from the prior setup, which had become messed up 
sometime in the 70 days mythtv was up.
Re-formatted and installed everything, including taking 4 hours for the 
'yum update' and loading the mythtv dependencies. Then a new svn of 
mythtv. But bash will not run the configure script.

I tried using the fedora recovery route and THIS IS WEIRD! If I ran 
'./mnt/sysimage/keep/mythtv/configure --help' IT RAN. So the bash + 
libraries of the recovery environment, ARE DIFFERENT than the installed 
versions. It is almost as if the installed 'root' login is not a 
privileged user. (Makes no difference if I try a different session, with 
the 'mythtv' user. It IS something in bash or the libraries it calls.

SO How do I track down what is wrong? On a quick pass, all of the 
libraries appear to have the same (correct???) permissions. If there a 
trace or something which can find the breakdown? (Google isn't too 
useful at this level).

More data. Selinux is disabled. For this, the firewall was disabled. 
Booted into run-level 5, using a terminal, kernel is new, updated to 
2.6.25-??? 69...latest. As noted, this is a brand new bare-metal (well, 
the metal that counts) install.
Geoff