Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2017 15:38:33 -0400 From: Lowell Gilbert <freebsd-questions-local@be-well.ilk.org> To: ByrneJB@Harte-Lyne.ca, jd1008@gmail.com Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD-11, Mate, Terminal, Gvim Message-ID: <44pocol32e.fsf@lowell-desk.lan> In-Reply-To: <59779BC9.8030809@gmail.com> (JD's message of "Tue, 25 Jul 2017 13:28:09 -0600") References: <a973035703bd510d1226163df5ac9a34.squirrel@webmail.harte-lyne.ca> <20170725210647.6f4c8fcd.freebsd@edvax.de> <59779BC9.8030809@gmail.com>
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JD <jd1008@gmail.com> writes: > On 07/25/2017 01:06 PM, Polytropon wrote: >> On Tue, 25 Jul 2017 10:39:29 -0400, James B. Byrne via freebsd-questions wrote: >>> When setting up new hosts I usually open an especially coloured >>> terminal instance and use 'su -l' to become root. I also typically >>> edit using gvim. However, this combination does not work for me on >>> FreeBSD with Mate as it did for me under CentOD-6 and Gnome2. When >>> inside a terminal window as root instead of opening an Xwindow editor >>> when running gvim I get a 'E233: cannot open display' error. >> This is to be expected. >> >> With "su -l", a full login is simulated, so all environmental >> variables will be reset - but $DISPLAY is needed for X. There >> are basically two solutions: >> >> 1. Set $DISPLAY accordingly, for example to :0.0. Refer to the >> documentation of your shell on how to do it, for example in >> C shell "setenv DISPLAY :0.0", in sh/bash "export DISPLAY=:0.0". >> >> 2. Use "su -m" instead, which will preserve the environment of >> your user, and $DISPLAY will be kept set. >> >> See "man su" for details. > There is another way which some people might criticize as unsafe, > but here it is: > as the normal user on the X display, type in the terminal > xhost +root@localhost > sometimes you have to completely qualify "localhost" with > how the name appears in /etc/hosts: such as: > localhost.localdomain > After that, su to root and as root, issue the command > setenv DISPLAY "0:0" > if using bash or sh , then > export DISPLAY="0:0" > > now, as root, any graphical tool you invoke will run. Sure, that's dangerous, but giving root direct access to an X server is already dangerous. I hope that the original poster understands this...
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