Solaris 10 GUI

midlandmonkey · January 31, 2012, 5:32pm

Hello there:-
Firstly, I think its probably a good idea to tell you i'm a bit of a Unix novice coming from the world of Windows but i'm getting there. I've had Ubuntu working at home on VirtualBox with a nice GUI, but i'm having an issue with Solaris 10.

I have at work a Solaris 10 machine which was pre built by someone who is now no longer with us and i'm trying to get a Gnome (JDS) gui up and running to give me a nice GUI to work with. Although I like the command line and can find my way around, I need to install Oracle database client and a few other bits, and i'd prefer the safety of a GUI.

If I login as root, and type:

root@app2 # gdm
gdm already running. Aborting!

So, if I try:

root@app2 # gnome-session
(gnome-session:2999): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:

If i'm honest i'm a little stuck, and not getting too far.. It's also very possible i've completely got my wires crossed as i've been trying to read up on the old
CDE and JDS..

If anyone could help me out, i'd really appreciate some words of wisdom for a novice!

Thanks,
Gareth

bartus11 · January 31, 2012, 5:41pm

Are you physically at the workstation? Do you see CDE running there?

midlandmonkey · January 31, 2012, 5:43pm

I'm using Putty to SSH onto the box itself. Its in a bunker in the US and i'm in the UK

bartus11 · January 31, 2012, 5:48pm

You don't need whole desktop environment to install Oracle in GUI mode. Just follow the steps I described some time ago in this thread, to forward X protocol through your putty session: pass an xpdf display from red hat server to windows ssh workstation
Then just run the installer from the command line and it should open the window on your Windows desktop.

midlandmonkey · January 31, 2012, 7:00pm

Excellent! Thanks for this..

I've just downloaded Xming and enabled X11 forwarding, but I dont have an X application to test it with such as /usr/bin/xclock

Do you know of any other test applications I could test it with? I'm transferring Oracle over there tonight, and would love to get that setup first thing tomorrow

Cheers,
Gareth

bartus11 · February 1, 2012, 3:46am

Try:

/usr/X/bin/xclock

midlandmonkey · February 1, 2012, 4:02am

Thanks Barthus,
I've tried that, and I get:

Error: Can't open display:

---------- Post updated at 09:02 AM ---------- Previous update was at 09:00 AM ----------

Forget that - I hadn't followed your instructions exactly and selected the host then the forwarding so it lost the change in Putty!
I can now see a clock and feel delighted

Thanks very much!!