[solved] Opening a program on a different X display

[doctordruidphd]

How can I open a program (xterm, for example) on the CTRL-ALT-F8 x display, which I understand is actually display 1.

reenman@Wolfenstein:~$ xterm -display 1
xterm Xt error: Can't open display: 1

Probably not that simple.

[kubicle]

Re: Opening a program on a different X display

Try:

xterm -display :1

[doctordruidphd]

Re: Opening a program on a different X display

Tried that, but:

$ xterm -display :1
xterm Xt error: Can't open display: :1

It works for :0, but the idea is to get it to come up on vt 8 or higher.
I'm thinking this is some kind of ubuntu security issue, a config file that needs to be changed somewhere.

Most of the info I have found via searching involves using startx, but that automatically starts a gnome session, which I do not want. Any way to change startx so that it does not start gnome, but just opens an x server on vt8?

[skunk]

Re: Opening a program on a different X display

Did you try starting X first with

xinit -- :1 vt8

[kubicle]

Re: Opening a program on a different X display

Tried that, but:

$ xterm -display :1
xterm Xt error: Can't open display: :1

It works for :0, but the idea is to get it to come up on vt 8 or higher.
I'm thinking this is some kind of ubuntu security issue, a config file that needs to be changed somewhere.

Sorry, I assumed you had an X session running on vt8. The command only works if there is a display :1 (a second X session)

[doctordruidphd]

Re: Opening a program on a different X display

xinit -- :1 vt8

Worked, thanks.
By default, this apparently has to be run as sudo. /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config can be changed to allowed_users=anybody for this to work from all users. Probably should leave it as sudo, or change it back after experimenting.

Still trying to figure out how to get startx to start a blank x session without gnome, but that's probably just hacking through the init files.