"Open as Administrator" behaving badly under Karmic?

[tgeer43]

I'm surprised that I haven't seen this mentioned in these forums or elsewhere on the web.

I've installed 'nautilus-gksu' in Karmic just like I always do when installing Ubuntu. In previous releases when selecting 'Open as administrator' on a folder the resulting new nautilus window would open with the nautilus profile settings of root. This is nice when you have multiple nautilus windows open as you can easily see which ones are root by the different icons and other nautilus settings. It's the same for Karmic but now my entire session becomes that of root (desktop, background, etc.) and the only way to revert back to my normal profile is to log off/on. Entering 'gksu-nautilus' at the command line gives the same result. Quite annoying and counter-productive, to say the least.

Am I missing a new Karmic setting or something else? Barring that, is there a better/quicker way to revert back to my normal user profile?

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I've rooted around quite a bit (no pun intended) but haven't turned up a solution yet.

tgeer

[tgeer43]

Well, the only GUI way that I found to circumvent this problem was to uninstall gksu-nautilus and use a regular nautilus script to open files/folders as root. I still don't know if the problem resides in the gksu-nautilus package or in Karmic itself. Since my resolution is more of a workaround than a fix, I'm not marking this thread as solved.

The complete lack of responses here leads me to believe that the problem is not widespread and may in fact have something to do with my particular installation/configuration but I can't for the life of me think of what it might be.

tgeer

[jamesisin]

I don't use that specific package (gksudo-nautilus). Can't you just gksudo nautilus when you need a specific window?

[tgeer43]

I don't use that specific package (gksudo-nautilus). Can't you just gksudo nautilus when you need a specific window?

I mis-typed a couple of times in my first post. The correct package name is 'nautilus-gksu'. And when I said:

Entering 'gksu-nautilus' at the command line gives the same result.

I meant 'gksudo nautilus', so I have tried that. It still changes my entire profile to that of root and there's no easy way that I know of to switch back to my regular profile. And besides, if I'm going to enter a CLI command to open a nautilus window as root, I might as well just enter the entire command, eg. sudo cp /etc/grub.d/00_header /etc/grub.d/00_header.bak.

Thanks for the suggestion, though.

tgeer

Tom

[jamesisin]

Well, you could merely type gksudo nautilus into gnome-do...

Have you tried running gksudo nautilus after removing (purging) nautilus-gksudo?

[tgeer43]

Well, you could merely type gksudo nautilus into gnome-do...

I don't run gnome-do but I don't think that would be any different than typing it at the command line or into the 'Run Application' panel applet dialog box. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Have you tried running gksudo nautilus after removing (purging) nautilus-gksudo?

Yes, unfortunately I have.

I just took a look at the 'Browse as root' nautilus script that I'm successfully using now. The command contained therein reads:

gksu -u root "nautilus --no-desktop $NAUTILUS_SCRIPT_CURRENT_URI"

So it appears that the --no-desktop option is the key. According to the nautilus man page:

--no-desktop
Do not manage the desktop — ignore the preference set in the preferences dialog.

tgeer

[jamesisin]

I think gnome-do is the best application launcher to date. A single keystroke starts it and then I type something until I recognize what I'm after. If I type out a command (like gksudo nautilus) and hit enter it's the same as having first opened the command line and then typed it out. I use it for just about anything now. Way better than Spotlight and better than Windows-R. And I probably am not yet fully exploiting it. (Use the Glass Frame theme as the others don't follow the behavior I am talking about.)

I agree with you about the --no-desktop. Sounds suspicious.

[3rdalbum]

The "--no-desktop" bit is the key. Alternatively, you can run:

gksudo gconf-editor

And then change the setting so that Nautilus (as root) doesn't manage the desktop.

[tgeer43]

I think gnome-do is the best application launcher to date. A single keystroke starts it and then I type something until I recognize what I'm after. If I type out a command (like gksudo nautilus) and hit enter it's the same as having first opened the command line and then typed it out. I use it for just about anything now. Way better than Spotlight and better than Windows-R. And I probably am not yet fully exploiting it. (Use the Glass Frame theme as the others don't follow the behavior I am talking about.)

I agree with you about the --no-desktop. Sounds suspicious.

Thanks for the info on gnome-do. I'm already quite familiar with it (having tried it in the past) and I know that it's widely regarded as the best app of its kind. However, I currently have no real need for it. That may sound a bit odd but if you saw that way that I have my system set up you would understand. Every menu and application that I normally access is already at my fingertips via panel launchers and applets and I rarely have to type anything unless I choose to work from the command line. There's nothing on my desktop as I have nautilus set up to not manage the desktop. For those few apps that I use only infrequently there's always the main menu or the 'Run Application' panel applet.

And besides, we already established the fact that it would not help in this case because it's no different than typing the same command from the command line which unfortunately doesn't work.

tgeer

[mbeach]

And then change the setting so that Nautilus (as root) doesn't manage the desktop.

trying to understand a similar issue over at:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1372619

thinking that they may have seen the same sort of thing happening.

Which setting controls root allowing desktop management - what is the path to the setting in gconf-editor? Is it something other than Apps -> Nautilus -> Preferences -> show desktop?