sudo vs. gksu (was: Re: Nervous Mouse Syndrome)

Nils Kassube kassube at gmx.net
Sat Apr 5 09:08:58 UTC 2008


Markus Schönhaber wrote:
> Mario Vukelic wrote:
> > No, gksu _is the right tool to use. sudo should never be used to
> > start graphical applications, as this could cause problems:
> >
> > https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo (in the "Notes" section)
>
> Since the above page only says "don't do it!" but doesn't explain what
> might happen otherwise: what problems are to be expected if one starts
> a graphical application with sudo?

With sudo some applications access / modify the user's config files as 
root. From then on they are owned by root and the user can no longer 
access / modify them. That leads to unusual error messages which only 
long time users can trace back to the permission problem. With gksu (or 
kdesu if you use kde) this problem is avoided.


Nils




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