can't start tcltkgrass; DISPLAY error

[Markus Neteler]

Hi Linda,

does your machine have a name?
Try 

 uname -n

to check the situation. If no name is given to the machine, 
TclTkGRASS might not work. TclTkGRASS was developed mainly on 
Redhat Linux, so it shouldn't cause problems.

Best regards

  Markus Neteler

> 
> I recently installed GRASS 4.2.1 on a Pentium 233MMX system running Red Hat
> Linux 5.2 .  (I downloaded the binary file grass421_linuxbin21.tar.gz from
> http://wgrass.media.osaka-cu.ac.jp/grassh/main_linuxbin.html ).  I followed
> the instructions (linked to from the same page) and everything seemed to go
> well.  I can start GRASS (by typing "grass4.2") and once I get through the
> LOCATION/MAPSET/DATABASE screen (I also downloaded some test datasets), I
> type "tcltkgrass&".  Here is where the trouble starts.  I have tried this
> both as root and as a user, but both return the error messages:
> 
> Application initialization failed: no display name and no $DISPLAY
> environment variable
> Error in startup script: invalid command name "bind"
>     while executing
> "bind balloon <Enter> {
>         set balloonHelp(%W,after) [after 400 {updateBalloonHelp %W}]
>     }   "
>     (procedure "BalloonInit" line 2)
>     invoked from within
> "BalloonInit"
>     (file "/usr/local/grass42/tcltkgrass/main/gui.tcl" line 1307)
>     invoked from within
> "source $env(TCLTKGRASSBASE)/main/gui.tcl"
>     (file "/usr/local/grass42/bin/tcltkgrass" line 17)
> 
> 
> I searched the mailing list archives, but didn't find a problem exactly like
> mine, but I thought it might help to set the DISPLAY environment variable
> manually:
> 
>         export DISPLAY=:0.0
> 
> This produces the following error messages:
> 
> _X11TransSocketUNIXConnect: Can't connect: errno = 111
> Application initialization failed: couldn't connect to display ":0.0"
> Error in startup script: invalid command name "bind"
>     while executing
> "bind balloon <Enter> {
>         set balloonHelp(%W,after) [after 400 {updateBalloonHelp %W}]
>     }   "
>     (procedure "BalloonInit" line 2)
>     invoked from within
> "BalloonInit"
>     (file "/usr/local/grass42/tcltkgrass/main/gui.tcl" line 1307)
>     invoked from within
> "source $env(TCLTKGRASSBASE)/main/gui.tcl"
>     (file "/usr/local/grass42/bin/tcltkgrass" line 17)
> 
> I also tried "xhost +" (because it was mentioned in an answer to someone
> else's display problem in the mailing list archive) but it didn't work,
> either.
> 
> The binary download page mentioned that I needed the lesstif library, so I
> downloaded and unpacked that.  It also said I needed the tcltk8.0 linux
> library, so I downloaded and unpacked that.  I also went to the TclTkGRASS
> page and downloaded the latest version there, in case the latest version is
> not the one packaged with GRASS 4.2.1.  At every turn, I get the same errors
> listed above.
> 
> I am all out of ideas.  If someone could help me get this working, I would
> appreciate it greatly.  I am running all of this on a Linux partition on my
> local harddrive to see if I can make it work.  I have access to other
> distributions of Linux (SuSE, Debian, Slackware) and I would happily change
> distributions if another one would work better.
> 
> Thanks in advance for any advice or suggestions,
> 
> Linda Moet
> Programmer Analyst
> GWN Technologies
> lindam at gwnsys.ca