[Gllug] do X windows manages work under root?

Michael Melchert mmelchert at cgg.com
Thu Oct 11 16:25:07 UTC 2001


On Thursday 11 October 2001 15:16 pm, you wrote:
> I get the feeling I'm about to win plonker of the week award.
>
> I've successfully installing Debian (testing) on my work station and I'm
> not sure if this is a problem or how it should be.  Starting "X" as root
> sawfish (window manager) doesn't appear to start for Gnome there is no
> scroll bars etc for windows and under "Gnome control center" it says
> "[sawfish isn't running]".  There is also a message in the
> ".xsession-errors" file "Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server",
> nothing about sawfish, there is one regarding xscreensaver and not
> running due to root.  Starting "X" as logged user steve, all works ok
> and no error messages.
>
> OK I know you don't normally run X as root, but when doing the install
> and testing everything I guess I expected it to work just as well with
> root.  I have spent ages digging round trying to figure out how to get
> the window manager to work.  Is it a security thing that the window
> manager wont work as root? I am aware that the normal way to operate is
> start X as a normal user then promote to root when required while in X.
>
> This is the first time I have had a real play with the X environment cos
> everything I've done so far has been on servers and I've always removed
> X or not installed it.  I've finally got round to building a Linux based
> workstation so I can get rid of Doz.
>
> Steve.

as an additional present to the award winner:
xhost +localhost 
issued as the owner of the display should do the job



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