[Bug 88257] "conversation with su failed" message unhelpful

[Mark Stosberg]

Public bug reported:

Binary package hint: kdeadmin

This happened on Edgy:

1. Log into an account that is not in the "admin" group.
2. Try to run adept. 
3. Enter correct password. 
4. Witness mysterious, unhelpful result: "Conversation with su failed"

I'm a very experienced Linux user, and this message gave me no idea what
the problem was.

A much better behavior would be to not even ask for the password, but
immediately notice the user is not an administrator, and report: "You
must be administrator to run this application.", and if possible, offer
to run the application in unprivileged mode, as Adept can do.

You can see other users have struggled with this poor wording here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=116514

A search on Google for "Conversation with su failed" turns up even more
users confused by  the message.

  Mark

** Affects: kdeadmin (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: Unconfirmed

-- 
"conversation with su failed" message unhelpful
https://launchpad.net/bugs/88257