Actual "ubuntu" session issues

[dino99]

Here is the output:

oem@focal64:~$ ls -la
total 104
drwxr-xr-x 20 oem oem 4096 mar.   4 18:53 .
drwxr-xr-x  3 root  root  4096 jan. 31 14:47 ..
-rw-------  1 oem oem 4261 mar.   6 20:57 .bash_history
-rw-r--r--  1 oem oem  220 jan. 31 14:47 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r--  1 oem oem 3771 jan. 31 14:47 .bashrc
drwx------ 20 oem oem 4096 mar.   5 10:50 .cache
drwx------ 23 oem oem 4096 feb. 29 16:33 .config
drwx------  3 oem oem 4096 feb. 28 12:19 .dbus
drwxr-xr-x  2 oem oem 4096 feb.  5 10:04 Desktop
drwxr-xr-x  2 oem oem 4096 mar.   5 10:51 Documents
drwxr-xr-x  3 oem oem 4096 mar.   4 15:21 Downloads
drwx------  3 oem oem 4096 feb.  1 08:11 .gnupg
drwx------  3 oem oem 4096 jan. 31 15:51 .local
drwx------  5 oem oem 4096 feb.  2 20:47 .mozilla
drwxr-xr-x  2 oem oem 4096 feb.  5 10:04 Music
-rw-r--r--  1 oem oem  357 feb.  5 10:03 .pam_environment
drwxr-xr-x  2 oem oem 4096 feb.  5 10:04 Pictures
drwx------  3 oem oem 4096 jan. 31 18:46 .pki
-rw-r--r--  1 oem oem  807 jan. 31 14:47 .profile
drwxr-xr-x  2 oem oem 4096 jan. 31 15:51 Public
drwxr-xr-x  3 oem oem 4096 jan. 31 17:28 snap
drwx------  2 oem oem 4096 feb.  1 08:11 .ssh
-rw-r--r--  1 oem oem    0 jan. 31 15:09 .sudo_as_admin_successful
drwxr-xr-x  2 oem oem 4096 feb.  2 21:17 Téléchargements
drwxr-xr-x  2 oem oem 4096 feb.  5 10:04 Templates
drwxr-xr-x  2 oem oem 4096 feb.  5 10:04 Videos

[ajgreeny]

Well in the list you have shown of ls -la output you appear to have managed to get away with using command sudo synaptic or other GUI applications, though are you sure that was the full list of output you saw as there appear to be a few files missing in your list, eg .Xauthority, .xsession-errors, .ICEauthority.
Are you using wayland instead of xorg? That may account for the lack of .Xauthority and .xsession-errors.

I also note the username oem and I wonder if you have performed an oem installation, though I admit I'm not sure what that means regarding running a normal user session so we must wait someone who know about OEM installations if that is how you installed.

[dino99]

It is a default 'ubuntu' session, and the output above is complete; no matter what the user name is (dont be disturbed by it )

Compared to an other install '.dbus' here is owned by 'user' instead of 'root' on the other install.

[corradoventu]

On my Ubuntu 20.04 synaptic works fine clicking on the icon and desktop file is as follows:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Synaptic Package Manager
GenericName=Package Manager
Comment=Install, remove and upgrade software packages
Exec=synaptic-pkexec
Icon=synaptic
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=PackageManager;GTK;System;Settings;
X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain=synaptic
StartupNotify=true
StartupWMClass=synaptic

[mc4man]

This has nothing do do with synaptic, it's about pkexec.
The ~/.dconf folder is useless, generally created in the past by sudo gedit or similar. Normally also would see ~/.cache/dconf which also is useless. Both folder and contents can be deleted.

To check $HOME for root owned files better to run

ls -lA -R  |grep "root root"

At this point in Gnome (Ubuntu session) one can again run sudo gedit without consequence.
Also now there is no ~/.Xauthority file with gdm3.

To confirm it's just your user you could create a new user with admin rights and see.. Currently you can't do that but you can change the policy so no need to auth user-accounts.
Open /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/org.gnome.controlcenter.user-accounts.policy file as root, change the <allow_active>auth_admin</allow_active> line to yes as in screen.
Then if the new user can use pkexec for synaptic maybe you can find a file in ~/ that needs to be removed/redone/whatever.

A fresh install will certainly solve.

If you wanted to remove auth on opening synaptic normally then do the above edit on
/usr/share/polkit-1/actions/com.ubuntu.pkexec.synaptic.policy

[ajgreeny]

Is the lack of .Xauthority a gnome case only, as I certainly have that file in my home in Xubuntu 20.04.

I have not used gnome for a long time now and have no way to find out if this is so or not.

[mc4man]

Is the lack of .Xauthority a gnome case only, as I certainly have that file in my home in Xubuntu 20.04.

I have not used gnome for a long time now and have no way to find out if this is so or not.

I suspect so. A fresh install about 10 days ago had none, a fresh install today the same.

Edit:
It's the display manager. gdm3 doesn't create/use .Xauthority file, lightdm does and maybe other display managers.

[ajgreeny]

Thanks for that mc4man.

[dino99]

Latest gnome upgrades from proposed now let sysnaptic be opened via its icon; so self upgrade fix

[him610]

$ apt list synaptic
Listing... Done
synaptic/focal,now 0.84.6ubuntu3 amd64 [installed]