YaST2 fails to start, not able to locate ncurses / qt libraries

  • Document ID:7006751
  • Creation Date:30-Aug-2010
  • Modified Date:30-Apr-2012
    • Micro Focus Products:
      Open Enterprise Server
      Open Workgroup Suite - Small Business Edition (NOWS SBE)
    • SUSE Products:
      SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop
      SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time Extension
      SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

Environment

Novell Open Enterprise Server 2 (OES 2) Linux
Novell Open Workgroup Suite Small Business Edition (NOWS SBE)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10
SUSE Linux Real Time

Situation

Running yast (ncurses based) or yast2 (qt based) from a shell fails with

warning: the qt frontend is installed but does not work
warning: the ncurses frontend is installed but does not work
You need to install yast2-ncurses to use the YaST2 text mode interface

Tracing the issue using "sh -x yast" shows it tries to load /usr/lib64/YaST2/plugin/libpy2qt.so.2 and /usr/lib64/YaST2/plugin/libpy2ncurses.so.2
 which are both available on the system.

Resolution

This issue may be encountered if /etc/ld.so.cache is outdated. In this case yast cannot access the database for shared libraries on the system anymore and fails to start. Refreshing the file using the ldconfig command is recommended.

More information about /etc/ld.so.conf, /etc/ld.so.cache and ldconfig is available via "man 8 ldconfig".