On Thu, 21 Jul 2016 21:00:29 -0500, Stephen_Isard <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>I have upgraded an SL6.7 laptop to SL6.8 - really just kept 6x up to date - and after a reboot  I can't make an internet connection or mount a usb key from the "Places" menu as an ordinary user.  I imagine that the upgrade has changed the defaults in some authorisation file somewhere.  I'd welcome any advice on where to look.

In case someone else hits the same difficulty:

The problem appears to be a change in ConsoleKit that the xdm display manager (package xorg-x11-xdm) isn't coping with.  When I log in through  xdm,  ck-list-sessions says that my session is not local, which it needs to be in order to control usb, wireless, ethernet, etc..  Gdm doesn't have the same problem, but I prefer to use as little Gnome as I can manage.  The SL6x repositories don't offer a downgrade for ConsoleKit.  However, I tested with an older version that I found in a Centos repository and the problem went away.  For my own purposes on a laptop that I don't reboot very often - just suspend and resume - I'm more comfortable with the solution of booting into runlevel 3 (edit /etc/sysconfig/inittab) and running startx by hand.  The only thing that doesn't work when I do that is suspending by simply shutting the lid.  I have to run pm-suspend with sudo.  There must be a way of telling ConsoleKit to let a local session run pm-suspend.

I note that SL7 has abandoned ConsoleKit for logind, so the issue is not of longterm interest.  In fact, xorg-x11-xdm isn't in the SL7 repository either, but the fc19 rpm works for me.

Stephen Isard