Trouble in accessing `/home/USERNAME/.Xauthority'

[Tom H]

>> I'm a beginner user of Ubuntu(and also Linux), using Ubuntu 9.10.
>> I tried to setup linux-firewall.org using this steps(as mentioned in
>> www.linux-firewall.org):
>> 4. Run the following commands:
>> sudo lfwsetup
>> sudo ln -fs ~/.Xauthority /root/.Xauthority
>> sudo chown USERNAME.root ~/.Xauthority
>> (you will have to replace USERNAME with your username)
>> 5. Restart your PC and enjoy the software
>> Until step 4, I hadn't any problem. But when I run "sudo chown
>> hamed.root ~/.Xauthority", I get this error:
>> chown: cannot access `/home/hamed/.Xauthority': No such file or
>>  directory

> I think the reason is that there is no file "/root/.Xauthority".
> Therefore I would suggest you create it as an empty file with the
> command
> sudo touch /root/.Xauthority
> and then the chown command should succeed. However, I don't know if that
> will work because perhaps the file may not be empty.

Step 4 will only work in Ubuntu pre 9.10.

Anyway, you cannot simply touch .Xauthority and expect X to run.