Gnome 2.8 configuration

I have reported a bug in settings for Gnome 2.8. Cannot set background Cannot set theme Cannot get keyboard to repeat, types each letter twice instead I decided to login to Gnome as root, and everything works. This seems to indicate a permissions problem, but I have no idea where to start. All files and directories in /home/ed/.gconf are owned by ed.users. Where could the problem be? Ed Harrison SuSE 9.1, Kernel 2.6.7-vanilla PolarBar Mailer 1.25a