Well, this is my first post using my new Debian (Sid) based 486 computer.

After I installed synaptic, I used it to install firefox and kdm and then I shut the computer down for a while. When I restarted the computer and tried to use synaptic to install more software I got this error-

(process:976): Gtk-WARNING **: Locale not supported by C library.
Using the fallback 'C' locale.
Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server
Xlib: No protocal specified


(synaptic:976): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:

I do not undrstand what any of this means, so if someone can help please go into a little bit of detail because I still do not know a whole lot of the steps yet.

Thanks

From what you tell, I reconstruct that in xterm you typed "su" to become the root user and then you typed "synaptic", which gave you the error message. The error probably happened because you logged in as a normal user and tried to launch application as a different user (the root user). Debian's security settings forbid this. You can try (as normal user) the "gksu synaptic" command, which (hopefully) lets you launch Synaptic.

Try export XAUTHORITY=/home/stephen/.Xauthority in the console window before running the program of course changing "stephen" for your user name. This will allow you to use your normal user connection to the X server as root.

APT-HOWTO
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/ap.../index.en.html

if you haven't installed a firewall, install guarddog
apt-get install guarddog

You are correct about my login, when I logged out and relogged in as root user synaptic ran correctly.

Thanks

Ah, but logging in as root user is considered bad practice because especially newbies can easily destroy important system settings without noticing when they have root user's rights (and also experienced users can make mistakes). As long as you're a normal user you cannot mess up your system. It is therefore recommended that you always log in as normal user and use "su" when you need root user's rights. You can do most things in Debian as normal user, so why take any unnecessary risks?

This, of course, means that your original problem is still unsolved. Luckily, there's a workaround for this -- run (as root) the command "ln -fs /home/user_name/.Xauthority /root/.Xauthority" (substitute "user_name" with your user name), then log out and log in again as normal user. Now you should be able to "su" to root in xterm and launch programs as root user without problems.

Dead Parrot,

The command "ln -fs/home/my user name/.Xauthority/root/.Xauthority" gave me an invalid option error.

When I looked at the help file all of the options had one letter like "ln -f" not two.

Have any ideas?

There are several parts in this command and you've kind of bundled them together although there should be space between different parts. The first part of the command is "ln", the second part is "-fs", the third part is "/home/user_name/.Xauthority", and the fourth part is "/root/.Xauthority". You must be always very careful when typing commands in the Linux command line, because smallest changes can make the commands do something that you didn't mean them to do.

Here's the command again as it should be:

ln -fs /home/user_name/.Xauthority /root/.Xauthority

Notice the spaces between the four different parts of the command?

Thanks, Dead Parrot, synaptic is now loading in normal user mode (after I switch to root user)!

Now on to some reading,