Emacs problems with SuSe 9.1
 

I just installed Suse 9.1 pro. Emacs was not included in the default install so i installed it off the cd using Yast. It appeared to install fine but when i try to run it i get the following error...

Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server
Xlib: No protocol specified

emacs: Cannot connect to X server :0.0.
Check the DISPLAY environment variable or use `-d'.
Also use the `xhost' program to verify that it is set to permit
connections from your machine.


I have no clue whatsoever what any of this means or how i'd even begin trying to fix it. Can anyone suggest something?

Aswell as that, should I use Yast to install packages or the rpm commands from the command line. I heard that if you dont install rpm packages properly it can mess up the rpm database.

Thanks,
NNP

Jumping to conclusions here ... you're trying to
edit something in a terminal, su'ed to root, while
logged in as a normal user in X?

Try su -c "emacs /path/to/file"
Or
a) as nornal user do "xhost +localhost"
b) as root "DISPLAY=:0.0 emacs /path/to/file"

What you have run into is a quite basic
permissions problem, not emacs specific
at all ...


Cheers,
Tink

damn you, your right! :p


Just as a matter of interest, is what your saying that since i had su'ed to root the root account doesn't access programs installed in /usr/bin? i installed emacs into /usr/bin then shouldn't it be available to all users?

It's not a matter of file-permissions ... emacs is
actually starting; what it wouldn't/couldn't do
is display anything on the other users' desktop.

You'd have the same "problem" (actually it's a
very sensible security default) with any other X
application that you start from root (or any other
user for that matter) ... some daft distro's (e.g. MDK)
will change that behaviour, though.


Cheers,
Tink

Actually, I believe that the Mandrake behavior is the same as what you described. I have Mandrake on my laptop and I will use kdesu to start a gui program as root.