Starting X as a normal user

Question

I am only able to launch startx as the root user, but I would like to run it as a normal user instead, because apparently xrdp won't let me open a remote session when X is running as root.

Every time I try to launch startx as a normal user it immediately crashes saying that the exiting process has been successful (haha, how funny).

This is what I have tried doing so far:

• Changing the owner of .Xauthority to my user
• Deleting all .Xauthority-related files
• Adding my user to the video group
• Reconfiguring xorg
• Uninstalling and reinstalling xorg
• Setting permission to launch X to anybody in /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config

All to no avail, I can still only run startx as root. I am running Ubuntu 12.04 Server.

Solution

The solution was to change the owner of the .ICEauthority as well, which was still owned by root:

sudo chown {user}:{usergroup} .ICEauthority

Comments

[Cbhihe]

Do you mean the ~/.ICEauthority ? In my case (14.04.x) ownership is already that of the user... ( 0_o ? )

[NewCoder019]

Uh that was long time ago, I am not sure anymore :P