cannot open sources.list

[nyblueguy]

I am trying to edit the sources.list file to install

I am getting this error
debian:/home/sp# sudo gedit sources.list
Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server
Xlib: No protocol specified


(gedit:6734): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:
debian:/home/sp# apt-get install gedi

anyone know what this is about?

[Dapper Dan]

Not really sure but there is always the option of opening it from a command line editor. There are several to choose from. I use "joe" mostly but there's also Pico, Nano, Vi and others. Chances are you have Vi. As root:

vi /etc/apt/sources.lst

Use the arrow keys to get around. Press the "insert" key before editing. To save and close press

Esc [then] :x

...and Enter.
For more on vi see here.

[Zelmo]

From the hash mark (#) in your prompt, it looks like you're calling that command as root. I'm guessing you opened a terminal as a regular user, then did su to change to root. That would explain the X server refusing to connect. To do X-related stuff with root privileges from a terminal, your best option is to use sudo as a regular user. Or if you prefer to switch to root, you can use sux instead of su (you'll have to apt-get install sux first, because it's not included).

But I'd go with Dapper Dan's suggestion of a good CLI editor. Nano comes with Ubuntu, and is plenty easy to use.

[nyblueguy]

I got it to work. added my user to the visudo file. is this bad? not sure. I was getting the error that my user was not a memeber of the sudo group. I have been doing some updates trying to get kde working right with etch. so far so good.

[genesus]

that's not bad at all, excellent tinkering in a minor way...keep reading them man pages and playing with all aspect of your system...its YOUR system