Question 1:
I have my X running and it's working rather well until I try and launch a program from my shell window:

# kate
kate: ERROR: KUniqueApplication: Can't determine DISPLAY. Aborting.

How do I correct my "determine DISPLAY" problem? Is this in the xorg.conf file? Please note I'm doing this in a GUI shell, in KDE.



Question 2:
When I'm not running KDE my shell resolution is very low, making it very hard to work in, how do I change this resolution? My boot loader is lilo if this makes a differance.



Question 3:
How do you keep your slackware system up-to-date with packages? I've tried swaret, but I'm having problems with getting through my proxy, and I don't have ftp access. Are their any other, or better package updater/management programs available?


Thanks for all your help.

Try Gentoo

Just Joking

Did you open up a regular user console and then do an 'su -' to become root?

If so, you won't get the original user's environment, such as the DISPLAY variable.

You also won't have permissions to write to that user's display, even as root, so that's another thing.

Resolution can be changed by editing the config file

/etc/X11/xorg.conf

It's pretty self explanatory. If all else fails try http://www.google.com/linux


1. View the changelog [notice the http, since you have ftp problems?

http://carroll.cac.psu.edu/pub/linux.../ChangeLog.txt

2. Look at the list of Slackware mirrors [find the ones that are http?]

http://www.slackware.com/getslack/list.php?country=USA

3. Download the updates to your hard drive in a new folder.

4. In a shell as root, run the command

upgradepkg *.tgz


Simple as pie, that's the Slackware way

In regards, definatly read UPGRADE.TXT before upgrading. Follow that to the "t" and you're fine.

About the display errors, being root could be the problem. I've seen sometimes my "DISPLAY" variable gets hosed. Just restart X and it usually fixes it.

-Jason

Sounds like you're trying to run Kate as root from within Konsole. As explained above, you can't do that---at least, not easily.

I'm a GUI user too although I've been around computers for more than two decades. I detest every 'nix console-based text editor I've investigated and I enjoy Kate. I solved my problem of wanting to use Kate as root by placing a Kate icon in my system tray that calls kdesu kate. You can do the same from the KDE Menu Run option or press Alt-F2 and then type kdesu kate. To see how I configured my Kicker task bar to include a system tray icon dedicated to using Kate as root, see this page:

Stop services from starting at boot

Sounds like you're describing your console text before you start X/KDE, either through the startx script or the KDM login manager. If so, then in my boot loader options I added the boot option vga=3 to provide cleaner text during boot. I use GRUB so I can't help you with LILO, but I think all you need do is edit the LILO config file in a similar manner, and then run LILO to recompile the boot file.

There are oodles of threads here at LQ addressing that issue. I prefer to do things somewhat manually. However, I use a nice KDE utility called kslackcheck. That tool does not perform automatic updates, but does help inform you of what packages installed on your box need updating based upon changelog notices. The tool also will help you download those files, but be careful with that latter option if you are on dial-up. Using kslackcheck means I still need to run upgradepkg, but kslackcheck only notifies me of those packages installed on my box and no others. Very nice.

I hope this helps.

I am making an assumption that you su'ed to root in a terminal, so that you could edit a configuration file. If you are using KDE, you might want to launch kate from the application launcher instead by entering "kdesu kate". Then you can load and edit the file as root. Another thing that you can do in KDE is to drag the icon from the menu, onto the task bar. Then right click on the Kate icon and select properties. Get into Advanced Properties and check the run as different user checkbox, and enter root as that user in the text entry line just below. I did this for "Konsole", and put it on the left-side of the taskbar, to segregate it from the normal user icons. You will be asked to enter the root password to run it.

On SuSE, there is a program called "sux" which allows you to su to root and start X11 programs from the shell. It is a wrapper for the "su" program that takes care of the xauth cookie transfers in the background. I mention this because other distro's also include it, so if you have it then you can enter "sux" instead of "su". If you don't have it, I don't think you could use the "sux" command from another distro. It needs to take your distro's authentication system into account. For example, in SuSE Linux, it will involve PAM, which your system doesn't use.

On the text size issue, I use "vga=791" as a boot option. You need to have frame buffer support to be able to use this resolution. There is a more general "vga=extended" but I don't care for the looks of the fonts on my card at this resolution. Since there are differnt versions of lilo, you might want to read up on the documentation for yours. Or, simply enter it manually as a boot option the next time boot up. If it is the resolution you want, then edit your /etc/lilo.conf file to use it and rerun /sbin/lilo.