I just installed debian on my laptop (for the millionth time in my life).  Gdm3 runs fine.  I log in to the nice gnome desktop.  I can start a gnome-terminal.  But from the terminal I cannot start any x stuff.  Xeyes, xterm, xclock, synergy… anything.  This is something that I have experienced for a long time, and today I decided that I was going to figure it out.

Here is the main error that I got.

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No protocol specified
xterm Xt error: Can’t open display: :0.0

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The problem it turns out, is that in my .bashrc file I am setting XAUTHORITY=/home/myuser/.Xauthority

that is a BAD idea!

 

When gdm3 starts, it gives me the XAUTHORITY variable and I am just trashing it once my .bashrc file is sourced.

 

When I commented out that line, viola!  It worked fine!  I have no idea how long I have had that entry in the .bashrc file.  But boy am I glad that I figured this out.