I'm trying to get an X server going on a headless box and I'm using Xvfb.
Invocation:
Xvfb -fbdir . &
Result
_XSERVTransmkdir: Owner of /tmp/.X11-unix should be set to root
Could not init font path element unix/:7100, removing from list!
Message when quitting:
FreeFontPath: FPE "built-ins" refcount is 2, should be 1; fixing.
Core Problem:
Attempting to run the headless Java test(I have another program that I'm actually trying to run, but this sample code reproduces the error) at http://www.j2ee.me/developer/technicalArticles/J2SE/Desktop/headless/ gets me this error:
(.:31027): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:
I know this sounds dumb, but did you try
chown root:root /tmp/.X11-unix
to address that first warning when starting up?Also, I think you're not using the appropriate DISPLAY variable when launching your program. Try
Xvfb -display :1
, thenDISPLAY=:1 ./yourprogram
and see if that works.If display :1 is taken, try :2, etc.
Alternatively, you could consider VNC as it serves roughly the same purpose.