Installing Xvfb on Ubuntu 9.10

Today I spent several hours wrestling with Xvfb on a fresh new Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) installation. The initial stages of the install are very promising, simply running:


>> aptitude install xvfb

Seems to work its charm and successfully install the software package. Unfortunately, if you attempt to test the Xvfb using something like:


>> Xvfb :99 -ac

You will most likely see a long list of error messages, something like:

[dix] Could not init font path element /usr/share/fonts/X11/misc, removing from
list!
[dix] Could not init font path element /usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic, removing
from list!
[dix] Could not init font path element /usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/:unscaled,
removing from list!
[dix] Could not init font path element /usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/:unscaled,
removing from list!
[dix] Could not init font path element /usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1, removing
from list!
[dix] Could not init font path element /usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi, removing
from list!
[dix] Could not init font path element /usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi, removing
from list!
sh: /usr/bin/xkbcomp: not found
(EE) Error compiling keymap (server-42)
(EE) XKB: Couldn't compile keymap
[config/dbus] couldn't take over org.x.config:
org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.AccessDenied (Connection ":1.74" is not allowed to
own the service "org.x.config.display99" due to security policies in the
configuration file)

Let us tackle this mess of an automated installation…

1. xkbcomp

Try running:



>> sudo aptitude install x11-xkb-utils

This will install the xkbcomp required.

2. Missing Font Errors (unnecessary?)

The font issues, probably, do not require fixing from a functional standpoint; nonetheless, you can install them with the following command:



>> sudo aptitude install xfonts-100dpi xfonts-75dpi xfonts-scalable xfonts-cyrillic

3. HAL

Apparently, some of the required components of this fake X server are within the core package of the actual X server. Try installing:



>> sudo aptitude install xserver-xorg-core

4. dbus

This last fix, is not going to work for everyone. I can use it because my intended use is on a remote server configuration not requiring any packages that depend on DBUS messaging system.



>> sudo aptitude remove dbus

These four steps enabled my 9.10 Ubuntu server to run Xvfb. I tested the xvfb-run command like:



>> xvfb-run firefox

It launches the firefox browser (if installed, if not installed it just exits) and waits for you to CTRL+C cancel it.

 

Source

http://blog.martin-lyness.com/archives/installing-xvfb-on-ubuntu-9-10-karmic-koala

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