How do I open gnome-panel?
 

Hello,

I'm trying to use gnome-panel. I run the command "gnome-panel" from the command line (gnome terminal) in my user account and get a pop-up box that says: "I've detected a panel already running and will now exit." When I do the same from root account, I get, "cannot open display"

Not sure what's going on here.

Thanks,

cj

gnome-panel will start the menu bar and system tray at the top of the screen, and the task-bar and desktop switcher at the bottom of the screen.

You can only have one instance running at a time - if the Gnome panels are already visible, then you can't start another instance.

By default, only the user that started the X-Windows environment can use that display. Since your user started X, then root can't display windows on your display. If you run the command "xhost +" as the user that "owns" the display, then you can start other GUI apps using other user accounts such as root.

I hope this helps
--Ian

Thanks. That makes perfect sense.

-cj

If you were trying to "open" the panel to add it, just right click on an empty portion of the panel you want and a menu of applet add-ons comes up. Assuming you're starting from a default Ubuntu install, there are a top and bottom panel. You may add to them independently. They can also be moved to the sides and the panel width and appearance can be modified with Properties.