running programs as root in KDE

[mcforum]

>  As with most things, it's easy when you know the tricks. I hope these
>teething troubles don't discourage you.

Teething Troubles--It's like climbing up a sand dune.  This protecting me from 
myself is getting terribly frustrating.  I want to do work not continually chase 
the user interface.  I was happy with fvwm but it has become moribund.  


KDE3 worked fine but KDE4 is awful.  I switched to GNOME now leaving for xfce4.  


Along the way the administration of my systems is gone.  A terminal session 
switched to root with "su -" can't start a program needing the display reliably 
no matter which desktop is used.  Analogous to kdesu, single programs can be 
started with sudo but an xterm started that way cannot start a next level gui 
program.  Sometimes the DISPLAY variable can be reset and get the "su -" root 
session to inherit the display.  A real hassle when trying to compile, install 
and debug.  Even CENTOS is following the pack.  


Robert McBroom