ad 1: Why do you start amarok as root ??????
if you want to access your iPod via Amarok and KDE doesn't mount it automatically (it normally does when you plug in your device after a few seconds, even Amarok suggests using it as your mobile music device!), you may mount iPod manually and instruct Amarok to use that mounted directory as your mobile music device. The only point where you may act as root is in mounting the device and setting the proper rights, that the normal user may use it.
ad 2:
How about creating a new user e.g. "testuser", logging in to that user und start amarok?
Do you still have the same problem? If not, then copy the file /home/testuser/.ICEauthority to /home/edday/ as root, then do "chown edday /home/edday/.ICEauthority". Be careful, the file has the rights -rw------- , that means only the user has read and write access to it. You can set the proper rights with "chmod 0600 $HOME/.ICEauthority" after logging in as the user edday
Debian Linux, mix of stable, testing and unstable; KDE with Compiz Fusion >=0.52 (git)
This post has been edited 2 times, last edit by "mdcg2004" (Aug 15th 2007, 9:19pm)