Donn Washburn
I guess you have discovered another new headachce caused by security. While logged in as a user In a xterm or konsole log in as root (su or sux), try to execute anything.
Error!
Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server Xlib: Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 key myprogram: cannot connect to X server :0.0
There is something wrong with your configuration. "xauth list" may help you to find out.
This is another reason that root is not equal to "su" or "sux"
Please, read "man Xsecurity".
Remember that you have been told you should not be logged in as "root". That is evil!
It's an oversimplification.
Long and short is that SuSE and/or X.org have rigged xlib for security (I guess) that root can not share the X server with a user.
It's not true. I'm sorry, I don't have time to explain how it works (perhaps someone can send a link to a good article). Anyway, I have one more comment. It's better to formulate problems by asking questions. People who are not familiar with the topic will then understand that you are not sure about the correct behavior. If you write your hypothesis as an "absolute truth" then a huge confusion among beginners will follow.
This is similar to the permission problems found in the past with xcdroast and a /dev/cdrom. root was told xcdroast was dangerous and a user could use the CD but xcdroast would work.
It's also about security but these problems are not related. -- A.M.