Ubuntu QA:
BlogBrainstormPackage status
Log in
Ubuntu QA
The Ubuntu community has contributed 21986 ideas, 135057 comments, 2615221 votes
Idea sandbox Idea sandbox
Popular ideas Popular ideas
Ideas in development Ideas in development
Implemented ideas Implemented ideas
Idea #43: Easier way to enter into sudo

bug This idea was marked as being not considered for implementation the 25 November 11.
Written by S the 28 Feb 08 at 15:27. Category: System. Related project: Nothing/Others. Status: Won't implement
Rationale
For newcommers having to type in sudo XXX in a terminal might be irritating.
I propose having a graphical way of using administrative permissions to edit core files of the OS such as xorg and others.
Now I know xorg has a front end but it doesnt do the job right in my opinion and there are other things people might need to do like use nautilus under sudo without using a terminal.
Tags: (none)

-205
votes
closed
Solution #1: Auto-generated solution of idea #43
Written by S the 28 Feb 08 at 15:27.
Ubuntu Brainstorm was updated in January 2009. Since the idea #43 was submitted before this update, its rationale and solution are not separated. Please vote accordingly, and if you have the necessary rights, please separate the rationale from the solution. Thanks!
2
votes
closed
Solution #2: right-click on entry in "Applications" menu -> run as su
Written by xubaj the 27 Aug 09 at 01:31.
blub

Propose your solution

Attachments
No attachments.


Duplicates


Comments
thermosilla wrote on the 28 Feb 08 at 16:13
This could be made trough policykit

will_in_wi wrote on the 28 Feb 08 at 16:46
I agree. Some work has been done in this area, like mounting internal volumes, but it would be nice if the system would prompt you for your password whenever you tried to do something that needed sudo permissions.

euklidis wrote on the 28 Feb 08 at 16:57
R u sure that you want to login as root? BTW you can run nautilus as root with a simple command. but i do not think that it is good. most of newbies will have root permissions all the time and they will really harm the system ;)

S wrote on the 28 Feb 08 at 18:31
well I am not saying enable root by default, but there should be a way to get into administrative mode without touching a terminal.

xannash wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 00:41
I think it works something like this already...

sudo root passwd
********

THEN

su
********

and your in as root.

dburanen wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 01:54
You mean something like Alt+f2, "gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list"

That would be cool. :)

S wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 02:00
xannash:
but thats still a terminal, the idea here is to not having to touch the terminal.

I dont know why this is a unpopular idea in the polls though, are we so command line elitist we dont care about potential newcommers?

jloehrlein wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 02:19
I don't like Linux, I wish I did.

The only thing worse than text editing obscure config files is re-editing them because you didn't start the editor with sudo.

Grayfell wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 02:53
I've got to say, not only is this a serious hassle for newbies, but it seems like a downside to people looking at Ubuntu from other distros. Having at least the option to do this without a command line seems perfectly reasonable.
Maybe once things work a little bit better from the install, but until then, users --newbie or not-- are going to have to edit their system files. Making that process intimidating is not the same as making it deliberate.

S wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 15:36
still why is this idea so unpopular, I am not getting many positive votes...
I guess most of you guys are too command line elitist

rawsausage wrote on the 1 Mar 08 at 13:10
No, not elitistic. This is just fixing the symptoms instead of the cause. It would be wiser to reduce the need to actually drop into terminal and having to manually edit configuration files.

aschuring wrote on the 2 Mar 08 at 16:17
I'd agree with rawsausage. I think the problem isn't so much with having to type sudo before every command, but having to type the command at all.

Ideally, the system should be able to be configured without resorting to the command line. So instead of fixing the need to type sudo, efforts should be focused on removing the need for the command line.

The main problem with that, is that GUIs are not universal; they differ for every distro, while the command line stays basically the same. So most guides on the internet focus on the command line.

(disclaimer: I'm a heavy command-line user myself)

sparc128 wrote on the 3 Mar 08 at 02:54

Ubuntu bug#1 is "Microsoft has a majority market share" https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1. With nautilus-gksu there is no risk of non-admin user getting into trouble since it's prompts for admin password. Making it hard for "admin level" users from editing files when GUI does not exist just maintains bug#1. This can be removed on future Ubuntu releases when everything can be done without admin rights.

BTW,

This is duplicate on :

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/1709/
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/43/
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/824/
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/332/
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/2640/

mawx wrote on the 3 Mar 08 at 14:18
What you are looking for is nautilus-gksu

You can install it and it will offer a "Edit file as Administrator" in the context menus of system files.

This should be installed by default to make things easier though.

mawx wrote on the 3 Mar 08 at 14:23
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/332/
is proposing the default installation of nautilus-gksu.

Aphoxema wrote on the 24 Sep 08 at 20:34
sudo bash

Done.


Post your comment