I've been running Slackware 14 for a couple months now. I am new to Linux, otherwise.

I've been running KDE as root (I know, i'm a bad boy), but i want to switch over to a user account for security purposes. Also so that I can use Google Chrome.

I made a new user account, equipped it with a password, and logged in. Everything seemed fine at a cursory glance. However, firefox was missing. If I clicked on the firefox logo titled 'Web Browser', nothing happened. If I clicked on the script, it said the executable was missing. If I tried to run it from Konsole, it didn't work.

So I tried using Konqueror, it worked to some degree. However, it loaded pages extremely slowly. It was also unable to download anything. I tried getting the official Google Chrome RPM through Konqueror, but it wouldn't download at all.

When I use KDE as root, everything works normally.

Can somebody help me troubleshoot?

Thanks.

1. The safest way to define users is via adduser.

2. After logging in as the new user, send the result of the following:

I have indeed created my new accounts with adduser.

At first, I created an account with no groups. This resulted in the problems explained above.

Now, I have deleted that user, and created a new one with users, lp, floppy, audio, video, cdrom, plugdev, power, netdev, and scanner.

Still, I cannot download Google Chrome, and the Firefox executable is missing.

Should I omit some of these groups as well?

As a non-root user, open a terminal and type

If Firefox starts, then your icon is probably not configured correctly.

As I tried to communicate, the terminal won't open it. Both 'firefox' and 'firefox &' return "command not found".

did you try running firefox as root? if this works add 'admin' to your groups list.

Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of adding a new user? Why not simply use the root login for everything?

No, it's pretty common. 'Root' and 'admin' aren't necessarily the same thing.

This is not very useful as there is no such group as admin in Slackware.

As user, type "/usr/bin/firefox". What is the output, verbatim?

As root, type "which firefox". What is the output?

Check that the firefox application has the right permission:

Also check the PATH

I'm not sure what I did, but Firefox seems to be working now.

Thanks for all your help.