Automatically launching Firefox from terminal using at command

Question

I am a beginner at linux and really enthusiastic to learn the OS. I am trying to launch Firefox(or any other software like Evince) from the command line as follows:

[root@localhost ~]# at 1637
[root@localhost ~]# at> firefox
[root@localhost ~]# at> ^d

The job gets scheduled without any error. But at the specified time it does not run. I also tried giving the following path:

[root@localhost ~]# at 1637
[root@localhost ~]# at> /usr/bin/firefox
[root@localhost ~]# at> ^d

Still no result. But When I try to use echo to display a text on the screen it appears at the specified time as desired. What might be the issue?

Answer 1

I think you have not set DISPLAY. at will run in separate shell where display is not set. try the following code.

dinesh:~$ at 2120
warning: commands will be executed using /bin/sh
at>  export DISPLAY=:0
at> /usr/bin/firefox > firefox.log 2>&1
at> <EOT>
job 7 at Tue Mar 11 21:20:00 2014

If it is still failing check firefox.log for more information.

Answer 2

1) Its not always recommended to run things as root

2) You can also try ./firefox if you are in the current directory of firefox. In linux you need to pay attention to your path variable. Unless . (the current directory) is in your path you will have to type ./program if the program is in the same directory as you.

Also you need to pay attention to file permissions: In linux you have read-write-eXecute access.

ls -l will do a list of directories and show the file permissions:

drwxr-xr-x   10 user  staff     340 Oct  6  2012 GlassFish_Server/
drwx------@  15 jeffstein  staff     510 Oct  6 15:01 Google Drive/
drwxr-xr-x   20 jeffstein  staff     680 May 14  2013 Kindle/
drwx------+  67 jeffstein  staff    2278 Jan 26 14:22 Library/
drwx------+  19 jeffstein  staff     646 Oct 23 18:28 Movies/
drwx------+  15 jeffstein  staff     510 Jan  3 20:29 Music/
drwx------+  90 jeffstein  staff    3060 Mar  9 20:23 Pictures/
drwxr-xr-x+   6 jeffstein  staff     204 Nov  3 21:16 Public/
drwxr-xr-x   22 jeffstein  staff     748 Jan 14  2012 androidTools/
-rwxrwxrwx    1 jeffstein  staff    1419 Aug 28  2013 color.sh*

This is an example of ls -l here you can see color.sh has -rwxrwxrwx that means that anybody can read or write or run the file.

Without actually knowing where you installed firefox however I can't be of more help but these are some small pointers which might help.

Answer 3

try finding where firefox is actually installed using "whereis firefox" command. Then try using that path in at command.

Answer 4

In order to get directions on how to use a command type:

man at

this will display the "manual"

DESCRIPTION
     The at and batch utilities read commands from standard input or a speci-
     fied file.  The commands are executed at a later time, using sh(1).

     at      executes commands at a specified time;

     atq     lists the user's pending jobs, unless the user is the superuser;
             in that case, everybody's jobs are listed;

     atrm    deletes jobs;

     batch   executes commands when system load levels permit; in other words,
             when the load average drops below _LOADAVG_MX (1.5), or the value
             specified in the invocation of at run.

So obviously you need to schedule a job with at and you can see if it worked with atq

Read the manual and it should help - if i have more time I'll write you a quick example.