** Description changed: I cannot start gnome-terminal. If I open an xterm and start gnome- terminal from the command line, here is what I get: $ sudo gnome-terminal Failed to contact the GConf daemon; exiting. (original report didn't have sudo in this command, but a later comment by the submitter amended this.) $ ps ax | grep gconf 3956 pts/0 R+ 0:00 grep gconf 6643 ? S 0:00 /usr/lib/pulseaudio/pulse/gconf-helper 6647 ? S 0:06 /usr/lib/libgconf2-4/gconfd-2 This is in Jaunty Alpha 4 with all updates current as of 12 Feb. This bug is now understood. Read all the comments (or at least try some text searches) before adding your own, because a lot of things have already been covered. summary of some stuff posted in comments: gnome-terminal on purpose refuses to start if it can't connect to gconfd to get its config settings. gconf clients now find the server using DBUS. Starting gnome-terminal as root doesn't work even when you have all the gnome bits and pieces running under your account, because DBUS is per-user. executive of summary: We know what is going on. Everything that doesn't work is a consequence of the design. Everything is working as designed, although obviously there are problems with this design. Discussion about the design probably belongs on freedesktop-bugs #17970 (link in the remote bug sidebar). - Workarounds: + Workarounds to use until the bugs are fixed: for the gconfd-not-running case: start gconfd. e.g. add /usr/bin/gnome-settings-daemon to your X session startup script, ahead of any gnome-terminal commands. This applies whatever window manager you happen to be using. (except if you're using Ubuntu's default GNOME desktop, which already starts gconfd itself.) multiple tabs over ssh: use screen(1) $ sudo aptitude install screen screen-profiles # if you don't have it already The default config has unhelpful keybindings. I'm used to ^t as the command key, and F11/F12 as next/previous tab (screen calls them "windows"). I set up my own .screenrc before screen-profiles was packaged, so I don't know if its examples and samples are good or not. If you insist on displaying a GUI over X11 over ssh, there are other terminal emulators with tabs, e.g. the lighter-weight mrxvt. (be careful, though: it doesn't support UTF-8.) You might also investigate ssh -M for connection sharing. As I understand it, this lets you tunnel multiple sessions over one SSH connection, so only one password prompt... You could presumably get a local gnome-terminal going with ssh connections in each tab. root shells: - use sudo inside a gnome terminal that's running under your own account. sudo -s, sudo -i, sudo su, and sudo bash are all variations on getting a shell running as root. If you don't know which to pick, use sudo -s. Or, better, don't start a root shell, and simply use sudo on the one or two commands that need it. e.g. - $ ls - $ less foo.conf - $ sudo editor foo.conf - (or gksudo editor foo.conf, if your editor of choice is opens it's own window instead of running inside the terminal) - $ ls .. - $ sudo mv foo bar - $ sudo # error permission denied - $ echo 10 | sudo tee /proc/sys/vm/swappiness # sudo tee is a way to accomplish echo 10 > file with the file-open happening as root. - - Root is dangerous: a typo could break things much more easily than - without sudo. The fewer things running as root, the better. It's not - usually necessary to run a terminal emulator as root, just things that - use that terminal. Even when you're doing a sysadmin thing, you - probably run lots of info-gathering commands that don't need root. Save - sudo for the commands that need it. + You can use sudo inside a gnome terminal that's running under your own account. sudo -s, sudo -i, sudo su, and sudo bash are all variations on getting a shell running as root. If you don't know which to pick, use sudo -s. Or, better, don't start a root shell, and simply use sudo or gksudo on the one or two commands that need it. This bug is partly that gconf requires DBUS, which breaks some remote- GUI situations, and partly that gnome-terminal just refuses to start without gconf, even though some people have found that it actually works if they comment out that part. Armed with this knowledge, this bug shouldn't be more than a minor inconvenience, esp. if you're not dealing with ssh. (GNU screen takes some time to get used to...) I hope it's ok that I turned this bug's description into a guide on how to deal with it. Please correct any inaccuracies.
-- Cannot start gnome-terminal because of gconf error https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/328575 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
