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Old 20th May 2009
gosha gosha is offline
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Default can't open display error

This is something I guess of very basic unix knowledge, but until now I have not found an answer (also because I can live with it and maybe did not look that hard for it).
The situation: I usually work as a user which is in the wheel group, if I use this user to login as a different user (even root), if I try to use an application that uses graphics I get this error:
Code:
# xpdf
Error: Can't open display:
This is xpdf, but it could be a movie etc.
Why is it?
How can I go around this?
I've read quite a few thread on the web, and if I got the point it has to do with some permission policy, but could not really understand the essence of the problem.

Could anyone explain in a comprehensible way or point me to a good tutorial?
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Old 20th May 2009
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Oko Oko is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gosha View Post
Code:
# xpdf
Error: Can't open display:
This is xpdf, but it could be a movie etc.
Why is it?
You are trying to open X client as root user on the X server which belongs to
regular user. That can be done but one needs to take care of certain permissions. I think at this point you would really benefit from reading man pages for X.Org because that was really elementary question.
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Old 20th May 2009
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hi gosha, A common reason that can happen is that when you switch over to the new login, the DISPLAY environment variable is not set. Graphics app's need that variable to know what X display to connect to. So the fix would be simple, just set the variable with something like (for sh-type shells)

$ export DISPLAY=:0.0

or whatever the appropriate DISPLAY was before you switched users. Note: some ways of logging in will automatically set DISPLAY for you and the problem won't happen.
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Old 20th May 2009
gosha gosha is offline
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actually, before posting I did try the export DISPLAY thing, but then I get this:
Code:
Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server
Xlib: No protocol specified

Error: Can't open display: :0.0
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Old 20th May 2009
gosha gosha is offline
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ok, never mind, I got it working with this:
$ xhost +local:root
run as the user that started X.
But now a more general question: if root is allowed to do "anything", why does it need a special permission from a normal user to use its display?
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Old 25th May 2009
sherekhan sherekhan is offline
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If you have Gnome you have the command gksudo to run graphical apps as root in the current users environment. kdesu is the same for KDE.
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Old 20th May 2009
BSDfan666 BSDfan666 is offline
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You shouldn't be running X clients as root.. the fact that the X server disallows root when running as a user is a good thing.
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Old 21st May 2009
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Actually depending on how you are running things, I believe root should be able to give him/her self access to the display without user intervention -- but it would not be polite
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Old 21st May 2009
BSDfan666 BSDfan666 is offline
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Booo at TerryP, that's like saying your boss should be allowed to come into your office and drink your coffee.

He can.. but he'll die trying.
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Old 21st May 2009
gosha gosha is offline
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I got the points, I sometimes forget about the risks of running apps as root.
Thanks
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Old 21st May 2009
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I meant 'should' as in technically should be possible, not 'should' as in should be allowed to do so :-P
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Old 26th May 2009
gosha gosha is offline
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thanks for the suggestion, but I use neither gnome nor kde. I'll be fine with the xhost command and actually follow bsdfan666, that is, don't run apps as root
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Old 28th May 2009
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you can use xsu instead of gksudo/kdesu gosha.
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