Equivalent of su for GUI?

From: OKB (not okblacke) (BrenBarn_at_aol.com)
Date: 07/07/04

  • Next message: OKB (not okblacke): "Re: Equivalent of su for GUI?" 
    Date: 7 Jul 2004 02:49:16 GMT

                I've just installed Debian on a cheap old computer and I'm fiddling
    around with it. One thing that I find somewhat irritating is having to
    switch out from X to a virtual terminal or run an Xterm, where I must
    then su if I want to do admin stuff. Is there any way to achieve an
    effect similar to su, but gain root privs within the X session? That
    is, I would like to be able to do something so that when I, say, double-
    click on some /etc file in Konqueror and it opens in Kwrite, I will have
    write privs. I want to gain the ability to do superuser things from
    within my existing X session, in the same GUI way I would do them as a
    normal user.

                I've asked some people and they said there's no such thing, but I
    thought I would ask here anyway. (I'm really rather surprised; it seems
    silly to have to always have an Xterm open just to edit text files when
    you've got the whole GUI up.) I was able to hack a semi-solution by
    writing a Konqueror servicemenu that does 'kdesu "kfmclient exec %u"',
    but that only works for the specific case of double-clicking files in
    Konqueror, and even that doesn't work completely. Ideally, I'd like a
    solution that's as complete as su.

                Thanks for the help. 

    -- 
--OKB (not okblacke)
Brendan Barnwell
"Do not follow where the path may lead.  Go, instead, where there is
no path, and leave a trail."
	--author unknown
  • Next message: OKB (not okblacke): "Re: Equivalent of su for GUI?"

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