How can it be both a marathon and a gamble?

Seems like you have a permissions issue. I just tested it on Fedora workstation gnome, run it from regular menu, then it asked me for password. You, you have a permission denied isssue, so you need to figure out how to run it as root.

Thanks a lot!

What do they know?

They get better everyday. You will use them at some point if you cannot find your software via your favorite package manager.