Re: User looses access to DISPLAY

[Kent West <westk@acu.edu>]

Haines Brown wrote:
> Finally bringing to conclusion my first debian (3.0r.1) install, I
> ran aptitude update. When I subsequently rebooted, user cannot start
> x, but root can.
>
> I reconfigured XF86Config-4 by running dpgk-reconfigure , using the
> simple configuration, which worked before, and kept the same
> values. But that did not help. There are a couple warnings in the
> XF85config log (a set of fonts does not exist; can't open APM), but no
> errors.  
>
> When root runs # echo $DISPLAY, it returns: :0.0.
> But when user runs $ echo $DISPLAY, there is nothing.
>
> I'm currently logged in as root, and in an xterm su to user to handle
> my mail. I find that user can start emacs, but not other x
> clients. The error returned when I try is that there is no display
> name and no DISPLAY variable. 
>
> I don't think I did anything that would affect authentification.  
>
> Haines Brown


Create a new user, and see if that user has the same problems.

Also check
enjae[westk]:/home/westk> sudo cat /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config
Password:
allowed_users=console
nice_value=-10

If the "allowed_users" is not "console", either change it, or better 
yet, run "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-common", which I believe will give 
you the option to change who can run the server.

If I log in as a normal user into a text console (no X11) and run "echo 
$DISPLAY", I too get nothing displayed. I don't think the lack of having 
a display env-var set is a problem.


--
Kent