Problem with programs requiring root

[bloch at verdurin.com]

On Sun, 27 Nov 2005, Sarangan Thuraisingham /  wrote:

> bloch at verdurin.com wrote:
> >I'm running Breezy on a laptop that  used to run Fedora, so I kept the
> >/home directory.
> >
> >There's a strange problem with the installation in that it appears none
> >of the GUI programs requireing root authorisation work properly (e.g.
> >Synaptic, the software update tool).  When I try to run them, nothing
> >happens i.e. in the case of synaptic or the update tool, I'm asked for a
> >password, that appears to be accepted, but no window appears.
> >
> >Any ideas as to what's going wrong here?
> >
> >
> >
> 
> Try running synaptic from command line like this:
>   ' sudo synaptic'
> 
> It might help to read/post any messages that appear in the command line.
> 

Yes, I've already tried that.  It doesn't work and there's no output on
the command line...