update-menus fails for normal user, but not for root

[Rich <rich@artsci.wustl.edu>]

Howdy all,

not too long ago, update-menus stopped working for me suddenly... now i just 
get a long string similar to the following message:

rm: cannot unlink `/usr/share/applnk/Multimedia/Debian': Permission denied 
ln: creating symbolic link `/usr/share/applnk/Multimedia/Debian/Sound' to 
`/home/rich/.kde/share/applnk/Debian/Sound': Permission denied


it still works when logged in as root, however. I have purged and 
re-installed menu, but it still does the same thing - any ideas?

thanks in advance,

rich