The config is saved in a binary format (on fedora in /var/lib/smart). Usually
this error indicates that another instance of smart is running and it has locked
the file. You might also get this error if you are running smart as a non-root
user, I am not sure about this one though.

This one is probably only a problem on my pc because of permissions. But I
wondered why the program is claiming not to be able to use the config as there
is no plain text file:
error: Configuration is in readonly mode.
So now I wonder how I change this as I can't file the proper config file (I
found nothing in /etc).
-sorry for being such a newbee, I just have to get used to linux a lot-