I am trying to install Mozilla Firefox but this is the error I get when I try to launch the program.

ryan@linux:~> firefox
Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server
Xlib: XDM authorization key matches an existing client!

(firefox-bin:8965): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:
ryan@linux:~>

No matter what I do with permissions it won't work. In Ubuntu on my computer (this is my aunt's) it works by simply downloading, untarring, executing the installer, and then executing firefox in the firefox folder. Same as when I used Mandrake before switching to Ubuntu. Why is it so difficult to do a lot of simple things like this with SuSE?

A couple of other problems I have noticed are.

When I eject a CD, it sometimes is sucked right back in within half a second, only with SUSE.

The filesystem is seriously messed. Why can't SuSE at least put a little effort in keeping things in their proper place. (e.g. I have never seen another distro where mozilla is kept under /opt/mozilla). It is just a pain in the ass. I hope Novell realizes this confuses people, as well as pisses them off, and it may result in people choosing a different distro.

This isn't exactly a problem, but in order to launch a gui while using su to have root privaledges, you have to use the command sux instead of su....what exactly is the point of this???

If my aunt leaves the computer logged into KDE overnight (to use kalarm)...after turning the screen back on programs won't launch and she cannot log in after logging out, it requires a full reboot...which only works from the command line. I personally have never experiences this phenomenon on neither Mandrake or Ubuntu.

Programs occasionally just stop working, and never work again unless you uninstall them and reinstall either from source or from a binary downloaded from the programs homepage. Even reinstalling the SuSE RPM doesn't fix this.


I seriously hope

a) That users of SuSE Linux Enterprise Server don't have to deal with crap like this...or else Novell will doom their own product.

b) That Novell will iron out a lot of the wrinkles in the SUSE distro sometime soon, because I think it has a lot of potential.

I've installed several versions of Firefox from the Firefox website and I've never run into this problem. However, I've seen many people on this very board pose the same question. Typically it's either suggested they install Firefox via YaST or, as kshaffer so kindly instructed in this recent thread, you can do the following:

I don't have answers or responses to the rest of your issues. All I can say is that I've been running SUSE for nearly a year and I don't have the troubles you seem to be having.

Try to start firefox as root once (kdesu firefox). I don't know if this will help you, but I read something like this elsewhere.

Fixed it. Thank you Praetor for your answer. It fixed it. What is with all these crazy x access thingies that are annoying on SUSE. Is it done for security reasons?

I'm pretty new to Linux and still learning all the ins and out, but from what I can gather, yes it is a security measure. I think it makes sense to provide varying levels of su. For example, I use kdesu in the KMenu->Run Command on a regular basis.

Sorry, I should have read the previous thread more carefully, since I suggested to do virtually the same thing (with kdesu you may get around this X access issue).

This Link may answer your last question:

http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2001/06/maddin_xhost.html

I too am having problems with firefox installing and working on suse 9.0, or 9.1. I get library issues and unfortunately can't seem to find an rpm or tar ball of libstdc++5 for suse distro of any level.
Also they still haven't fixed the yast online update problem I started noticing in 8.2. Works at install but after that you must manually put in the ftp server you want to download from.

This is a known problem with KDE, which has been reported for Redhat, Mandrake, Gentoo, Debian, Slackware... There are plenty of posts with the solution: try LQ thread 192967.

The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard version 2.3 states that "/opt is reserved for the installation of add-on application software packages." This seems a reasonable place to put mozilla.

I've installed Firefox on my suse 9.1 box yesterday night. I am not getting the lib problem you are getting.
I've started using apt-rpm instead of YOU. Works like a charm, better than YOU IMO. More info here

Don't know just what your problems with SuSE and FireFox are being a raw newbie myself, but I can tell you they are not particulary FireFox's or SuSE's problems. I have installed both FireFox and Thunderbird on two different desktop systems. One an Amd64 3400 and the other a P4 3.0 and in both they installed with no problems at all and run just great. I have also installed it on an old laptop and again both programs run just fine. The two desktops were running SuSE 9.1 and the laptop is running SuSE 9.2.

A friend of mine also runs both firefox and thunderbird on about 6 different systems, which includes 2 laptops and 4 desktops and he too has had no problems with installing or using them. He runs SuSE 9.1

http://rpm.pbone.net has RPM's for Firefox 1.0 and Thunderbird 9.0. Thier installs with Yast on SuSE 9.2 Pro were uneventful and successful.

I did end up getting them installed using the installers provided by mozilla.org. It worked fairly well. I just had to issue the command

xhost +

then start firefox, close it and issue the command

xhost -

and then it worked from then on in.