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gksu package

gksu or gksudo in Ubuntu 13.04 -- Not working

Asked by Warren Hill

Yesterday I installed 13.04 on a test system to check if it was still possible to get the "Gnome Classic" desktop -- it is.

However, when I tried to run the file manager as root by pressing ALT+F2 to open the run dialogue then entering

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gksu nautilus
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It does not work . I also tried

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gksudo nautilus
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With the same result. Note on 12.04 and 12.10 (and probably earlier versions) gksudo is a symbolic link to gksu

In this case I could get away with

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sudo nautilus
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but this is not recommended for graphical applications for the reasons given here
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo

I did some digging and found out that

1. gksu and gksudo are depreciated in favour of pkexec
2. gksu (and gksudo) have not been ported to Gnome 3
see here: http://changelogs.ubuntu.com/changelogs/pool/main/g/gksu/gksu_2.0.2-6ubuntu2/changelog

What is the easiest way to run graphical applications with root privileges in 13.04?

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Warren Hill
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Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

I suggest you report a bug. Raring is not ready and not stable

Revision history for this message
Warren Hill (warren-hill) said : 		#2

If the bug is that gksu is not part of the standard install any more what package is it?

What defines the list of packages that are in a standard install?

Raring is due out on April 25 so I would hope its reasonably stable by now: I have not seen any suggestion it's going to be delayed. I have it installed on a separate test PC: nowhere near the one I use day to day.

Revision history for this message
Warren Hill (warren-hill) said : 		#3

Just had a long conversation on IRC #ubuntu-devel.

gksu can be installed in Raring but it's not the preferred way any more.

I have posted a full answer here: http://askubuntu.com/a/284717/107450