xvfb on a machine with a display, can an application run 'in the background?'

Posted by marfarma on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by marfarma
Published on 2010-05-05T16:39:50Z Indexed on 2010/05/05 17:58 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 217

Filed under:

xserver

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watir

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macosx

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screen-scraping

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ruby

I'm setting up to cron a web scraping job, using xvfb, firefox, and watir on my Mac OS X.

In testing the script so far, firefox pops up visibly on the local desktop, the watir script executes, and then firefox exits (I quit firefox in my script).

I'd like to set the xvfb DISPLAY such that firefox will run, but won't be seen on the local desktop, running 'in the background' so to speak.

Nothing I've been able to find online discusses such a possibility - nor explains that it's not possible.

Is it possible? If so, what do I need to do to make it work?

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