I saw a script that included the following: #!/bin/bash if test ${DISPLAY:=}x = "x" ; then DISPLAY="mymachine:1.0" export DISPLAY fi Now if the variable DISPLAY:= doesn't exist, or is an empty string, then the above test is true. But what's the point of the test? It must be an X-Windows thing (or kludge?) that in some way uses the DISPLAY:= (not the DISPLAY) variable. === Al