gedit not working in ssh session: Autolaunch error: X11 initialization failed

when I try using gedit in an SSH Session, I get this:

max@amancer:/etc$ gedit SWARM.txt
** (gedit:24616): WARNING **: Befehlszeile »dbus-launch --autolaunch=b3945c581ae43ae601b4b5190000000c --binary-syntax --close-stderr« brach mit von Null verschiedenem Beenden-Status 1 ab: Autolaunch error: X11 initialization failed.\n
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Führen Sie »gedit --help« aus, um die Liste der verfügbaren Befehlszeilenoptionen zu sehen.
max@amancer:/etc$ sudo bash -c 'echo $DISPLAY'

1 Answer

ssh session normally do not forward (i.e., make available) the X11 connection on the other side.

ssh -X (or better ssh -Y) will enable remote graphical clients to open windows locally.

This does not work:

[romano:~] 130 % ssh zzzz
Last login: Sun Feb 22 21:35:08 2015 from XX.YY.ZZ
[romano@zzzz:~] % gedit
(gedit:11225): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display: 

But this will work:

[romano:~] 1 % ssh -Y zzzz
Last login: Wed Feb 25 14:51:25 2015 from localhost
[romano@zzzz:~] % gedit
[romano@zzzz:~] % exit

Consider however that the connection can be slow --- the X protocol is not efficient over slow networks. And sometime the connection can "linger", waiting for all the graphical connections to die.

You may try to use a terminal mode editor (like nano, vim, emacs or much other) in that case.