Hi,

I was wondering how I can get a program to run at the same time every day on my desktop.

What I tried to do was edit my crontab file by adding this line:

40 1 * * * root myprog

The problem is, the program is not loading because it needs X Windows to run.

How do I get a cron job to run an X-based application?

You can start an xterm and tell xterm to start a program. General syntax:
xterm -e <name program>
A more specific example:
xterm +sb -fg black -bg gray -fn 8x13 -geometry 141x73-0+0 -e /usr/bin/slrn -f .jnewsrc --spool

There is a catch: If your program exits, the xterm will exit as well.

I am getting the error:
/usr/bin/X11R6/xterm.real Xt error: Can't open display:

What I am trying to do is have something like M$'s Task Scheduler program.

Where are you running this xterm.real from?? Looks like you might need to 'export your display', but I never heard of xterm.real so I could be wrong. Did you find anything about this error on the net?

About the task sheduler: I haven't used windows in more then 5 years, so I don't know what program you are refering too. 'sheduler' gives me a good clue ).

I'm trying to run it from the shell on tty1 and causing something to load on the display I'm using now to type this message. Any way I can do this?

An example of what I want to do is have mozilla open my web e-mail account at 11:00pm everyday before I go to bed and forget to check my mail. Any way I could do this?

Are you trying to run a program that needs X from a non GUI environment (runlevel 3, no X running)?? If that is true: You cannot do that. X must be running.

About your 'schedule problem':

You need crontab for the sheduling:
00 11 * * * /full/path/to/program

I don't know the mozilla syntax, but if it's like opera's it looks like this:
mozilla www.somewhere.com/my_web_mail.html

Put both together:
00 11 * * * /full/path/to/mozilla www.somewhere.com/my_web_mail.html

You might need to take care of any error messages that might be send to stderr, if that is the case, change the above example to:
00 11 * * * /full/path/to/mozilla www.somewhere.com/my_web_mail.html 2>/dev/null

Like I said in the first part: X (and a windowmanager) must be running, 'cause mozilla needs it.

I already tried what you suggested. I set a certain X-based task to run at 11pm every day. But at 11pm nothing happens. Yet when I put "init 6" (to restart my computer periodically) in crontab it restarts at 11pm without a fuss.

In Windows, I can enable Task Scheduler to load the program of my choice, GUI-based or not GUI-based, at regular intervals. I need to be able to have something like this in GNU/Linux.

Do I need a Crond For X in order to run an X program?

I don't think you answered my question about trying to start an X program from a non X environment.

- You cannot start an X program if X is not running (you can if you redirect to a machine that has X running).
- There's no cron for X.