When Yast2 fails to start using Xming

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

Problem:

 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.

Solution

This issue may be encountered if /etc/ld.so.cache is outdated.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".