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From: ptroot@uswest.com (Paul T. Root)
Message-Id: <199606051818.NAA04604@astro.acs.uswest.com>
Subject: Re: Display variable
To: dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 13:18:07 -0500 (CDT)
Cc: randyd@nconnect.net, questions@freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.91.960605102011.11731C-100000@riley-net170-164.uoregon.edu> from "Doug White" at Jun 5, 96 10:21:30 am
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In a previous message, Doug White said:
> 
> On Tue, 4 Jun 1996, Randy DuCharme wrote:
> 
> >      Is there a display variable somewhere that needs to be set (FreeBSD 
> > 2.1)?  I encounter the message "unable to open display"  (sometimes it's 
> > unable to open display ''  or unable to open $DISPLAY ) when I attempt 
> > to run ghostscript, or the fvwm window manager for X, or a few other 
> > apps.  I'm new to FreeBSD and UNIX in general and realize I've probably 
> > missed something, but I've been messing around with it, and reading man 
> > pages for 3 weeks now and can't find the answer.
> 
> DISPLAY should be set when you login.  It is on my machine.  
> 
> I'm not on X right now or I'd echo mine.

If you are on your console, the easiest DISPLAY is :0
Or you can set it to machine:0 where machine is your machine
name (name of ethernet port) or localhost (127.0.0.1).

For sh/ksh/bash: 
export DISPLAY
DISPLAY=:0

for csh/tcsh:
setenv DISPLAY :0

But, Doug is right, it should be set when you do a startx
or from xdm.


-- 
Paul T. Root - USWEST !NTERPRISE Networking Service	ptroot@uswest.com

Being perfect is a terrible way to spend your life and guys are not
equipped for it anyway. It is like a bear riding a bicycle: He can be 
trained to do it for short periods but he would rather be in the woods
doing what bears do there.			- Garrison Keillor