DISPLAY variable problems starting Gnome.

[Jon Turney]

On 06/03/2026 13:20, Stuart D Connell via Cygwin wrote:
> I am having problems starting Gnome in the Cygwin environment.

Unfortunately, the situation is that I'd recommend not trying to use this.

It has been on my backlog for a while now to remove the Gnome (and KDE) 
desktop sessions from Cygwin. These don't perform well for technical 
reasons, and haven't been updated in a long time.

If possible, consider using a different DE (e.g. LXDE, LXQT, MATE, 
Xfce), as listed at [1]. These are all still overdue a refresh as well, 
but last time I checked, they worked.

[1] https://x.cygwin.com/docs/ug/using.html#using-starting-session

> 
>   
> 
>  From a cygwin64 terminal:
> 
>   
> 
> I start the X window environment using startxwin
> 
>   
> 
> Export DISPLAY=:0.0
> 
>   
> 
> I can then start xeyes, xclock etc so the x-server is up and running
> 
>   
> 
> When I start gnome-session I get a number of gtk warnings, a small window
> opens then closes, then the following error
> 

However, I don't think this is how you're supposed to run gnome-session.

There should be a start menu shortcut created with the appropriate runes.