Failed to obtain authentication in F 15

[Flemming]

Hi
I have just installed Fedora 15 on my laptop,
Now i am trying to install some programs like .... skype, drivers to my printer etc but i get this message: Failed to obtain authentication.... when the installer is trying to solve dependensies...

I have tried to log in as su but i cant that ether due to fail password or username... that is the message i get at the log inn screen

What is it i have not done ?

Regards
Flemming Dall

---------- Post added at 01:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:35 AM ----------

From a shell / terminal it is possible for me to log in as su and use the password i know is right, but in the log in screen, when i try to log in to an su account it is denied... ?

Regards
Flemming

[DBelton]

you can't log in as root in Gnome anymore (unless you go through and change some system files to allow it.)

But there really is no reason that you need to log in as root in Gnome, There are numerous ways to do waht you need without actually logging in as root in a GUI.

1: open a terminal, su to root, then run yum to install the packages you want.
2: ctrl-alt-F2 to get to a console screen, sign in as root, run yum to install the packages.
3: open a terminal, su to root, run yum to install yumex, which is a graphical front-end to yum.

su -
(root password)

yum install yumex

Then go to your Applications overview.. Activities-->Applications-->System Tools and click yumex. The enter root password and it will give you a graphical environment to select packages and install.

4: run packagekit, and when it asks for authentication, use your user (not root) password (if the user has been set up as administrative user).

[Flemming]

Hi Dbelton

Thanks for your quick reply, id did help a lot, and it did work out fine.

My learning courve is still rising !!

I am now trying to find some more documentation on how to work with linux / unix systems. Just startet.

I am greatfull for your help !!

[DBelton]

I do believe that with linux, a person is always learning something new

There are a couple of new things in Fedora 15 that you need to be aware of when looking around for documentation.

First is that Fedora now uses the Gnome 3 shell instead of the older version Gnome 2. And thing just don't work the same on the 2 versions.

The next is the introduction of systemd which replaces the old sysvinit/upstart that previous versions used.

But other than those 2 big changes to Fedora 15, you should be able to get documentation from recent Fedora versions and use it, or even Red Hat Enterprise linux. (I would look for Fedora 15 specific documentation to start out to cut down on the confusion, though)