It appears that explicitly setting the variable # export GTK2_RC_FILES=/root/.gtkrc-2.0-kde:/root/.kde/share/config/gtkrc-2.0 is enough to make the problem disappear (on my system) for synaptic and wireshark.
If this variable is unset, Synaptic looks "ugly". I think that's a bug as I'd expect applications to find their defaults without the help of environment variables (and the default should not look ugly). There's also GTK_RC_FILES, but I don't know what application uses this variable. I strongly disrecommend symlink'ing any files from your regular $HOME to root's home, or vice-versa. Prior to this, I've set root's "use my KDE style in GTK applications" via #kcmshell kcmgtk as was recommended somewhere -- and verified that it modified, /root/..., not my /home/... (cf. the ugly sudo issue). -- [Hardy] The gtk-qt-engine doesn't work while staring applications as another user https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/205201 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs