Firefox on SuSe

I just installed SuSe 9.1, downloaded Mozilla Firefox and happily ran the installer. I was immediately greeted with:

Xlib: connection to “:0.0” refused by server
Xlib: No protocol specified

(firefox-installer-bin:10674): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:

The simplest way to fix it is to open the ‘firefox’ script and add “xhost +” to the top of the file (just before the script starts), and add “xhost -” just before the EOF at the bottom of the file. This solved the problem for me. I installed firefox as root into the /opt/firefox directory.

By Mikhail Esteves | November 24th, 2004 in LAMP, Tips

15 Comments

FrankDecember 1st, 2004 at 7:07 pm

Hi Mikhail,

When you say ‘the firefox script’, do you mean the installer script?

MikhailDecember 2nd, 2004 at 6:54 pm

Hi Frank: I mean the actual script that runs the ‘firefox-bin’ executable. It’s available in your installation directory and is simply named ‘firefox’.

frankDecember 3rd, 2004 at 3:35 am

No such file. There IS a script called ‘firefox-installer’, but if I add those lines to this file I get:

Xlib: connection to “:0.0” refused by server
Xlib: No protocol specified

xhost: unable to open display “:0.0”
Xlib: connection to “:0.0” refused by server
Xlib: No protocol specified

(firefox-installer-bin:4911): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:
Xlib: connection to “:0.0” refused by server
Xlib: No protocol specified

xhost: unable to open display “:0.0”

MikhailDecember 3rd, 2004 at 2:50 pm

Frank: You’re trying to edit the installer. You need to install Firefox first. If you’re using SuSe, I suggest installing to /opt/firefox. Once you do that, you’ll find the ‘firefox’ script at /opt/firefox/. This is the file you need to add those lines to.

Secondly, if the installer itself is a problem, run it as ‘root’. Login to GNOME/KDE as root and then run it. This should solve your problem. If you login as yourself, first do a ‘xhost +’ in the command line before doing a ‘su’ or ‘sudo’ for installation.

frankDecember 3rd, 2004 at 4:16 pm

OK, I’ll try that. Thanks for your help :-)

frankDecember 5th, 2004 at 12:14 am

That worked: I had to install firefox as root FROM THE GUI, then edit the script, and only then can FF be used by non-root users. At least on Suse 9.1

Carit BenikeJanuary 14th, 2005 at 9:03 pm

Great fix, wonder why mozilla didn’t think of that!?

dennisMarch 10th, 2005 at 5:52 am

Oooooo my god! thank god for that hax! GREAT

MohammedMay 16th, 2005 at 10:52 pm

Thanks very much, your directives worked fine for me.
I had same problem, was NOT able to run firefox after installed it, just added the little commands into the firfox file and —> IT WORKED
THANKS