I'm running Kanotix with kernel 2.6.16.16-kanotix-1 and am getting the following errors:

When trying to run a pgm that requires root access (e.g. synaptic), kdesu pops up, I enter the root password and then get this error message:
The program 'su' is not found;
make sure your PATH is set correctly.

When I try to open a console, I get this merror message from Konsole:
Konsole is unable to open a PTY (pseudo teletype). It is likely that this is due to an incorrect configuration of the PTY devices. Konsole needs to have read/write access to the PTY devices.

I've googled both errors but haven't been able to find a solution. Can anyone help, please?

Thanks
Joe

2) check your /etc/password file to see if your default shell has changed from /bin/bash to something else.

1) after correcting that entry, from a console, run 'which su' to get the path to the su executable. Add it your your PATH variable.

PATH=$PATH:/bin/su

Thanks for the suggestions, but ...

In etc/passwd it's still /bin/bash

'which su' (from Ctl-Alt-F1) gives this output: /bin/su

echo $PATH (also from Ctl-Alt-F1) gives this output: /sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/games

Any other ideas? I'm getting kinda desperate

Try
and post the results.

Your $PATH does seem to include /bin, so that should be OK. Unless a chroot is involved, of course.

ls -ld /bin:
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 2648 Jan 8 10:04 /bin

ls -l /bin/su:
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 27000 Dec 7 19:28 /bin/su

OK. Seems fine too.

ls -ld:
drwxr-xr-x 23 root root 560 Jan 4 10:32 /

cat /etc/fstab:
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs devmode=0666 0 0
/dev/sda1 / reiserfs defaults 0 1
/dev/sda2 swap auto defaults 0 2
/dev/cdrom /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
/dev/cdrom /media/hdc udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
/dev/sdb1 /media/sdb1 auto defaults,user 0 0

Did you do this from the console (Ctrl-Alt-F1)? Or from a terminal window?

Did you make any changes to your /home/you/.bashrc or /home/you/.bash_profile?
Or to the systemwide bashrc and profile in /etc?

I did it from Ctl-Alt-F1. Can't get into a terminal window ...

Haven't made any changes to the other things you mentioned.

Here are the contents of .bashrc in my home directory:

# /etc/bash.bashrc
[ -f /etc/profile ] && . /etc/profile

/etc/bash.bashrc looks like this:

# /etc/bash.bashrc
[ -f /etc/profile ] && . /etc/profile


and /etc/profile looks like this:

# /etc/profile
umask 022
PATH="/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/games"
[ "$UID" = "0" ] || PATH="$HOME/.dist/bin:$PATH:."
export PATH
# Change PAGER
if [ -x /usr/bin/most ]; then
PAGER=/usr/bin/most
export PAGER
fi
# Set LOCALE
if [ -f /etc/sysconfig/i18n ]; then
. /etc/sysconfig/i18n
[ -n "$LANG" ] || LANG="de_DE@euro"
export LANG
[ -n "$LC_CTYPE" ] && export LC_CTYPE || unset LC_CTYPE
[ -n "$LC_COLLATE" ] && export LC_COLLATE || unset LC_COLLATE
[ -n "$LC_MESSAGES" ] && export LC_MESSAGES || unset LC_MESSAGES
[ -n "$LC_NUMERIC" ] && export LC_NUMERIC || unset LC_NUMERIC
[ -n "$LC_MONETARY" ] && export LC_MONETARY || unset LC_MONETARY
[ -n "$LC_TIME" ] && export LC_TIME || unset LC_TIME
[ -n "$LC_ALL" ] && export LC_ALL || unset LC_ALL
[ -n "$LANGUAGE" ] && export LANGUAGE || unset LANGUAGE
[ -n "$LINGUAS" ] && export LINGUAS || unset LINGUAS
[ -n "$_XKB_CHARSET" ] && export _XKB_CHARSET || unset _XKB_CHARSET

if [ -n "$SYSFONTACM" ]; then
case $SYSFONTACM in
iso01*|iso02*|iso15*|koi*|latin2-ucw*)
if [ "$TERM" = "linux" ]; then
if ls -l /proc/$$/fd/0 2>/dev/null | grep -- '-> /dev/tty[0-9]*$' >/dev/null 2>&1; then
echo -n -e '\033(K' > /proc/$$/fd/0
fi
fi
;;
esac
fi
unset SYSFONTACM
fi
# END LOCALE
# enable bash completion in interactive shells
[ "$PS1" -a -f /etc/bash_completion ] && . /etc/bash_completion
PS1="\u@\h:\w\\$ "
alias ..="cd .."
alias which="type -path"
alias where="type -all"
alias ll="ls -l --color=auto"
alias l="ls -a --color=auto"
alias rm="rm -i"
alias mv="mv -i"
alias cp="cp -i"
alias la="ls -la --color=auto"
alias ls="ls --color=auto"

So you can't open a terminal window, but you can still use your Linux GUI (the applications in the menu, etc), right?

Can you run "su" from (Ctl-Alt-F1) console? Or does that give you any errors too?

Can you also try (from Ctl-Alt-F1):

Yes, I can use the GUI. The only problems I've run into are when a program needs to run in super-user mode (like synaptic) and when I try to open a console.

'su' runs without problems from Ctl-AltF1

ls -l /dev/pty* returns "no such file or directory"

Thanks for your responses thus far. I appreciate it.

***bump***

Is your user name a member of the group "wheel" ?

Can you have a look at /dev/makedev.d/ and search for files that configure your pty's?