gksudo without sudo

[Tom Smith]

I'm a bit new to Ubuntu so I wanted to discuss this here before
submitting bug reports or whatnot...

I performed an "expert" install to minimize the number of packages that
were installed in the "Desktop" setup. Doing so, sudo wasn't configured
by default--that is, I was prompted for and entered a root password and
no accounts (other than root) were added to sudoers.

The problem is that when running Synaptics, for example, from the Gnome
menu (as a non-root user), I'm unable to access it--it's using gksudo to
launch. Many other admin-related menu entries are doing the same thing.
If I run the same command from the command line using gksu it works
fine--for example, I'd execute "gksu synaptics" and it would load after
I entered the root password.

The fix is simple... I just needed to add myself to sudoers and gksudo
began working.

I don't fully understand Ubuntu's security architecture yet so I'm not
sure if this is expected behavior or an oversight. With the way the
system (Gnome, mainly) is currently configured, it requires that one
configure sudo in order to run any of the admin apps from the Gnome menus.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?