This may seem like a stupid question. I've usually had sucess searching the forums to answer my questions, but I don't quite know how to phrase this one.

I've been running Slackware 9.1 on one of my computers for the last month, and it's been running beautifully. I recently decided to dump the fedora off my other pc (too bloated, but very friendly ) and install Slack.

One problem. If I'm in KDE as a normal user and have a konsole open under root it won't let me start programs out of that konsole. It lets me do this on my other computer.

It say's "(program name here): cannot connect to xserver"

So unless I want to use VI, I have to log out and log on as root. yeauck.

I also can't seem to get delete or backspace to work in vi. help!

Okay before going root, in the console type

xhost +

this disables access controls and allows root to launch x programs. Don't run like this all the time as you leave yourself vunrable. After your finished close the console or type

xhost -

When your back as a normal user.

didn't work. I opened a console window and typed "xhost +" and it gave me:

"access control disabled, clients can connect from any host"

which seemed good, and I got excited, but when I did su - root and tried to open a program

root@villa:~# kedit
kedit: cannot connect to X server
root@villa:~# kate
ERROR: KUniqueApplication: Can't determine DISPLAY. Aborting.
root@villa:~# ark
ERROR: KUniqueApplication: Can't determine DISPLAY. Aborting.
root@villa:~#

Don't do

su -

Just

su

Otherwise you alter paths and the xprograms can't start.

Thanks! That worked! We have linux for dummies to blame for that one.
That's how it shows it in the book "su - root". Woo.

Well it does work, su - resets the path. So you get all the extra utils root can use, the stuff in sbin etc.

normally you don't need the - But when someone says a util and it doesn't seem to exist then you need the -