[sf-lug] GKsu has long been EOLed

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Akkana Peck (akkana at shallowsky.com):

> On the other hand, I don't need a graphical sudo (I don't think I
> even have one installed). Typing "sudo gparted /dev/sdb" in a
> terminal works fine for me. 

Such work _on_ a RPi would be a rare case of a rescue/maintenance live
distro not being the right choice, for the simple reason of there 
_not being_, to my knowledge, any such distros for RPi.

That being said, if I had that problem, I'd keep a spare SD card set up
with a carefully sparse X11 setup and maintenance and with root login
enabled (no must-use-sudo bullshit), and keep it in a drawer and marked
as 'RPi Rescue Image' for just such occasions.


If I didn't have one handy, personally I'd do:

$ ssh -Y root at localhost
# gparted /dev/sdb &

(Assumes a local sshd -- and I am not a member of the must-use-sudo
church.)

FWIW, I read recently that running graphical applications with root
authority using sudo is disrecommended.  It
was said in a number of places, citing something about various files
ending up getting wrong permissions/ownership, but I didn't pay much
attention because of not being a church-of-sudo parishioner.
Supposedly, that's part of the rationale for using GKsu and kin,
instead.

I like the 'ssh -Y' method for X11 forwarding because it works
beautifully anywhere there's ssh, and because it generalises for
tunneling X11 from graphical applications you run (usually not as root)
on remote hosts, too.


For example (on the latter point), when I worked at Cadence Design
Systems, we were supposed to use a time-tracking application that
existed only for MS-Windows and Solaris.  So, I just did 'ssh -Y' 
to a Solaris host on the LAN, and ran it there with X displaying via the
ssh tunnel onto my Debian laptop.