X does not start - .ICEauthority file problem

Outline of how to correct problems with .ICEauthority when trying to start X

You may encounter this problem if you set up the sudo function as outlined elsewhere in these Wiki pages.

You only need to carry this out if startx fails under the new user's account and you get an error message about a file called .ICEauthority. The first thing you need to do make sure you are logged in as root (prompt should show #). Then change to the home directory of the user you just created, ie:

# cd /home/user

Do a directory listing using the ls command to see the ownership of each directory as follows:

# ls -la

Output will be something like:

 total 152
drwx--x--x  20 abc  abc   1024 Jun 15 21:00 .
drwxr-xr-x   4 root root  1024 Jun 12 21:51 ..
drwx------   2 abc  abc   1024 Jun 13 20:35 .AbiSuite
-rw-------   1 abc  abc    183 Jun 13 22:14 .ICEauthority
drwxr-xr-x   2 abc  abc   1024 Jun 12 21:51 .LinNeighborhood
 ......and so on..... 

When you create a new user, they are usually added to a group, typically the same name as the user. In the above case, the new user name is abc and the two columns show the ownership of each file or directory, ie user abc belonging to group abc owns .ICEauthority.If you have an .ICEauthority problem, the ownership will be "root root". The chown command will allow you to change this. Hence if you type:

# chown username:usergroup .ICEauthority

This will change the ownership to the user you just created.

Now log out as root:

# logout

and then log in again as the new user. You should have a $ prompt. Type startx:

$ startx

and if all is fine, X should fire up.