sudo gedit Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:

Question

I have a VPS on which I am attempting to install pure-FTPd via a root SSH account on a remote machine. I have already installed gedit and have gotten to the stage where I need to edit a config using gedit with the following command sudo gedit /etc/inetd.conf

However doing do results in...

error: XDG_RUNTIME_DIR not set in the environment.

(gedit:6155): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display: 

I am a newbie at linux, please help, thanks

Solution

Gedit is a graphical editor. However, SSH is a strictly NON-graphical interface. Therefore, use a text-based editor like nano or vim.

For example:

sudo vim /etc/inetd.conf

Comments

[Frank Thomas]

you are using an SSH terminal connection, right? just text? if so, you want to use a text-based text editor like nano or pico or vi. if you are actually in a gnome session try using gksu or gksudo instead of sudo. gksu/gksudo are the same as sudo, but made for graphical sessions.