On 6/20/23 17:18, Andy Smith wrote:
Hello,
On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 04:56:39PM -0400, pa...@quillandmouse.com wrote:
On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 20:39:35 +0000
Andy Smith <a...@strugglers.net> wrote:
Please do not encourage Gene's fetish of running GUI apps as root.
Plenty of people have been wasting their time trying to tell him not
to do that for years now, and the last thing they need is bystanders
handing him a different bore of firearm to aim at his foot.
I understand not running, say, VLC as root. But Synaptic? It allows you
Even if you want to disregard the security implications of running
a GUI app as root, just because the alternative might be running a
similar TUI app fully as root — and I wouldn't necessarily agree
with that stance as GUI apps are inherently bigger and more
complicated — but sure, let's go along with that:
Even then, the fact remains that GUI apps needing a bit of admin
access is a decades old problem that has a really old solution, that
being policykit, a framework specifically designed for this that
Synaptic uses on all major desktop environments and is thus the
supported way to run Synaptic in GUI mode. root is a different user.
There are all manner of intricacies involved in getting a different
user to have permission and ability to meddle with the display
session of the person sat in front of the computer. This is the way
it's meant to be done.
So anyone persisting with this with sudo and trying to copy X
cookies around is just looking for pain.
Thanks,
Andy
Alright then the question is, is policykit the solution, or do we
install it, then spend two weeks and wreck 7 installs configuring
it to work? In other words, get to the specifics or find a new horse.
Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
- Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/>
