Ethereal-users: Re: [Ethereal-users] Installation Error - Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display

Note: This archive is from the project's previous web site, ethereal.com. This list is no longer active.

From: Guy Harris <gharris@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2005 23:57:07 -0700
Bob Perry wrote:
I just installed ethereal-0.10.12 onto my server-type FreeBSD 5.4 box
and apparently did a poor job.  Ran into the following error trying to
run the app from the command line:

"ethereal:xxxx: Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display"

This box does not have gnome or X11 Windows installed yet and I'm
guessing one, or both are necessary.

X11 is absolutely necessary. Ethereal is a GUI application, and the way GUI applications work, on most UN*Xes, is through X11. (And on the one exception - the UN*X and UN*X desktop environment developed in buildings on Infinite Loop in Cupertino - it's *still* an X11 application and requires X11.)

However, if you're logging in to your server box from a client that has X11 installed, you already have X11. In order to run an X11 application on the server, you have to set the DISPLAY environment variable (in your session on the server) to refer to your client machine.

Thought I would get a warning during installation.

It's not necessarily an error to install an X11 GUI application on your server, even if the server doesn't have an X11 server installed on it; you might have installed it so that you can run it with its windows displayed on a desktop client machine that *does* have an X11 server.