thank you Mike Chambers for the suggestion. Since when did the su command change it has always been su root & have never seen any documentation says su - root. Any how just to try it here is the result: [awp@localhost ~]$ su - root Password: [root@localhost ~]# pup Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server Xlib: No protocol specified
Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/sbin/pup", line 31, in <module> import gtk File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/gtk-2.0/gtk/__init__.py", line 76, in <module> _init() File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/gtk-2.0/gtk/__init__.py", line 64, in _init _gtk.init_check() RuntimeError: could not open display
[root@localhost ~]# kdesu pup Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server Xlib: No protocol specified
kdesu: cannot connect to X server :0.0
[awp@localhost root]$ su root Password: [root@localhost ~]# pup Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server Xlib: No protocol specified
Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/sbin/pup", line 31, in <module> import gtk File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/gtk-2.0/gtk/__init__.py", line 76, in <module> _init() File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/gtk-2.0/gtk/__init__.py", line 64, in _init _gtk.init_check() RuntimeError: could not open display
the result is the same. you do not have to enter su - root to login as root, just su root is good enough.