Probably a permissions issue. Most things in /etc are for root writing only because configuration files like to live in there.
Poke around /etc/X11 with ls -l. If you don't know what that means then man ls.
(man uses the program less. You can search for things in less by pressing the / key and typing a search term. You press q to quit)
Edit: Just tried it on mine. Yeah it's a permissions error. You can't modify an X11 config file (which is all the nvidia utility does) while running as a user. Sudo that motherfucker.
Cool. Be careful running applications as root; you shouldn't ever have to do it (this case was an exception) and if you do, you do it in a command line with sudo. A root user application shouldn't have a gui. Ever.
Example: I logged in as root on my phone. Wanted to remove a lock on a database, so I typed:
# rm /var
Then though, "Oh shit, I can't see what I'm typing, let me just move the cursor down a little"
*enter*
*enter*
*enter*
"That's bette- OH SHIIIIIT!"
Had to restore everything. Pain in the arse. If I was running as a user it would have errored due to permissions (what I was expecting) or asked for a password.
I run root on my Backtrack installation, but you need to in order to use all of the tools correctly. I might look into setting up a normal user account on there, but I don't see the need right now. Ill probably use this Xubuntu distro as my primary OS now.
Oh don't get me wrong, root user has it's uses. It's perfect for 'plan B' installations were there isn't really a user system, just some file recovery/disk utility software.
Comments
Poke around /etc/X11 with ls -l. If you don't know what that means then man ls.
(man uses the program less. You can search for things in less by pressing the / key and typing a search term. You press q to quit)
Edit: Just tried it on mine. Yeah it's a permissions error. You can't modify an X11 config file (which is all the nvidia utility does) while running as a user. Sudo that motherfucker.
Example: I logged in as root on my phone. Wanted to remove a lock on a database, so I typed:
Then though, "Oh shit, I can't see what I'm typing, let me just move the cursor down a little"
*enter*
*enter*
*enter*
"That's bette- OH SHIIIIIT!"
Had to restore everything. Pain in the arse. If I was running as a user it would have errored due to permissions (what I was expecting) or asked for a password.
Permissions overview (the -l flag in ls): http://www.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-HOWTO-Collection/images/access1.png