CVS/Root does not contain an absolute 

Symptom 

I get lots of cvs errors:

,-----
| $ cvs edit EHStatusType.java
| cvs edit: in directory .:
| cvs edit: ignoring CVS/Root because it does not contain an absolute pathname.
| cvs edit: in directory .:
| cvs edit: ignoring CVS/Root because it does not contain an absolute pathname.
| cvs edit: in directory .:
| cvs edit: ignoring CVS/Root because it does not contain an absolute pathname.
`-----

Conclusion 

It turns that my CVS/Root files were really wrong, because I check them out wrongly the first time.

$ cat CVS/Root
tsun@cvs.centercomp.com/Users/jcorporate/cvs/ehelpdesk

Solution 

Release them and check out them again solved the problem:

$ cvs release -d ehelpdesk
You have [0] altered files in this repository.
Are you sure you want to release (and delete) directory `ehelpdesk':
y
cvs release: in directory .:
cvs release: ignoring CVS/Root because it does not contain an absolute pathname.
cvs release: in directory .:
cvs release: ignoring CVS/Root because it does not contain an absolute pathname.
[...]
$ cvs co ehelpdesk
cvs server: Updating ehelpdesk
U ehelpdesk/build.xml
U ehelpdesk/project.dtd
cvs server: Updating ehelpdesk/src
cvs server: Updating ehelpdesk/src/META-INF
U ehelpdesk/src/META-INF/MANIFEST.MF
[...]

The right CVS/Root should be: 

$ cat CVS/Root
:ext:tsun@cvs.centercomp.com:/Users/jcorporate/cvs/ehelpdesk

Unable to commit from commandline cvs 

> > cvs commit: ignoring CVS/Root because it does not contain an absolute
> > pathname.
>
> So what's the contents of CVS/Root?

Thanks a lot for replying…

Sheesh…This is where I feel like a really dummy. I don't know why I didn't check that myself but the only line in /X11/susewm/AddEntrys/SuSE/Utilities/CVS/Root and Repository contains #SuSEwmSKIPthisFILE

This lead to checking the equivalent in the real /etc directory where I found CVS directories, which were remnants of a previous experiment, which also contained the same Root files…

Once I deleted these and reintroduced the SuSE branch into cvs, things started working fine.

I'm very sorry for sounding the alarm like I did…

Thanks again for your help…

Saimon