[Techtalk] Accessing X program from virtual console

[David Sumbler]

I tend to use virtual consoles (i.e. not running under X) for much of
what I do - in particular, e-mail.  But I use Firefox as my main
web-browser.

There is a bash script on the Firefox site, which opens a URL in a new
tab if the URL is given as an argument.  The script reads:

/usr/bin/firefox -a firefox -remote "openURL($@,new-tab)" || exec /usr/bin/firefox "$@";

This works fine from a terminal running under X, but if I use it from
a virtual console, it tries to run a new instance of Firefox (I
think), and I get (with varying process numbers, of course):

"(firefox-bin:6854): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:"

If I insert '--display=:0' to the script line, I then get:

"Error: Failed to connect to X server."

Can anyone suggest how to get this to work?

David

-- 

David Sumbler

david at aeolia.co.uk