Quote Originally Posted by lapidu View Post
Challenge: A user wants knoppix.sh to launch, or cause to be launched, a Leafpad window on his display. The window should be waiting for him once his graphical desktop loads. What code will allow him to do so?

Trying to run Leafpad, or any graphical program, from the root console results, of course, in a "Cannot open display" warning. I thought this challenge should have an obvious solution - the consoles and x-server are not totally insulated from one another, since they can all access the same filesystem, so there must be a simple command that can tell the console to make the x-server perform a job (e.g. launch a window) remotely, as it were. But so far my research and attempts have not found this 'simple command', if it even exists.

What do you think about the possibility of this challenge?
Some 15 years ago, I could just have the script append the commands to my startx script, but since then X has developed from hack to complete kludge, and there is still some time before Wayland resques us from that. I tried with a local .xinitrc file - X initialized, but wouldn't stay up. So there are probably very good reasons for .xinitrc missing... I don't even remember when, along the way, I gave up on such things - but it seems to be a challenge today, and that tells us that something is basucally flawed.