ubuntu-tweak under fluxbox

[Evan Huus]

On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 3:31 AM, Rainer M Krug <r.m.krug at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Hi
>
> I am using ubuntu-tweak under fluxbox (ubuntu natty), and the "unlock"
> button does not work - nothing happens. I assume, that a gnome
> background process is not running, but I am not that keen on having
> another process just running in the background, only because I need it
> once in a while.

Hi Rainer.

Ubuntu Tweak (and a good number of other applications) handle
permissions and the magic 'unlock' button through a system called
PolicyKit [1], which is a FreeDesktop spec (not a Gnome one). I'm not
on an Ubuntu install at the moment, but I believe that to make
policykit available, you simply have to have the 'polkitd' binary
running, and of course DBus active so that applications can talk to
it.

> WOuld it be possible to include an alternative approach for the
> "unlock" under window managers like fluxbox? Under the normal gnome
> desktop and unity, ubuntu-tweak is working fine.

The only alternative is to run the entire application as root (which
is what Synaptic Package Manager, for example, used to do), however
that's generally considered a Bad Idea security-wise. That's why most
applications which require privileges are moving to PolicyKit.

Again, I don't have a box in front of me but I don't remember polkitd
being particularly resource-intensive. If you'd still rather not have
it running all the time though, you should be able to start/stop it
manually when needed.

Hope this helps,
Evan

[1] http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PolicyKit