F10 and Gnome - not root login

[Aldo Foot]

On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 10:28 AM, Jeff Spaleta <jspaleta at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 9:08 AM, Aldo Foot <lunixer at gmail.com> wrote:

<..snip>

>> I did a fresh install choosing KDE only --this deselect the gdm package
>> from the X Windows System group. The problem persisted even though
>> there was no gnome or gdm in the picture.
>>
>> I reinstalled once again choosing GNOME. The problem persisted.
>>
>> So I logged in as root.
>> In both occasions I tried your suggestion to run firstboot manually, and it
>> failed with an error:
>> "-bash:/usr/sbin/firstboot:/usr/bin/python2:bad interpreter: No such
>> file or directory"
>>
>> Effectively speaking, the python interpreter is not there.
>> There is a empty link: "/usr/bin/python2 -> python"
>
> This would indicate a problem with the install of the python package.
>
> Empty link?  /usr/bin/python2 exists on your system?  But
> /usr/bin/python doesn't?
>
> ls -la /usr/bin/python*   would be interesting output to see.

# ls -la /usr/bin/python*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    6 2009-01-28 01:31 /usr/bin/python2 -> python
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1418 2008-09-30 12:41 /usr/bin/python2.5-config
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   16 2009-01-28 01:31 /usr/bin/python-config ->
python2.5-config

Now, let me add here that when I installed choosing KDE, I explicitly went
to the Development Group to choose Development Tools without modifying
the selections. That is supposed to install the interpreters such as gcc, perl
and python. Is this correct?
I did not choose Development Tools this last install with Gnome.
It appears this has nothing to do with Gnome or KDE.

> Also note that the installed python rpm on the afflicted system should
> have installed both the python binary and the python2 symlink in
> /usr/bin
>
> rpm -ql python |grep "/usr/bin"

This produces not output
# rpm -ql python |grep "/usr/bin"

> rpm has the ability to verify its payloads as installed on disk
>
> rpm -V python
> if /usr/bin/python is missing or /usr/bin/python2 is missing rpm -V
> python will include a line about the missing fine in its output.
>
> You might not be able to read its cryptic output, but the general rule
> of thumb is  rpm -V  is silent unless it thinks there is a problem
> with a payload file as installed from the package you are trying to
> verify. Some of the verification tests it does will require you to be
> root to be accurate or it will flag files as being potential a
> problem.
>
> -jef

Well, this explains a lot... how is this possible?

# rpm -V python
package python is not installed

~af