running programs as root in KDE

[Craig White]

On Tue, 2011-09-13 at 09:09 -0700, mcforum wrote:
> >  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.  
----
just some commentary about your troubles

I think that you are trying to swim against the current by trying to
execute GUI programs as root. Perhaps you already know the reasons why
but one of the main reasons is that few if any of the GUI applications
are audited or ever will be audited for risks associated with running as
a user with super user privileges. Those programs that need super user
privileges implement mechanics to allow specific programs to do specific
things. What I find is that users want to run GUI programs out of
indifference or just laziness and probably need to rethink their usage
patterns.

As for compiling - that really shouldn't be done as root for much the
same reasons... perhaps more compelling reasons too.

Install of course has to be done as root but generally that's just a
simple - one liner.

In terms of CentOS following the pack - uh yeah... it's a rebuild of
RHEL and thus incorporates the same methodologies.

Should you go to something like Debian or Ubuntu, the common usage is to
not enable the root user at all but simply adds the 'first user' to
group 'admin' and by default allows 'first user' to sudo anything. I'm
comfortable enough with that environment too.

In short, I think you are running smack into the general UNIX philosophy
of having limited permissions for most everything that is getting widely
implemented and so it probably isn't GNOME or KDE or CentOS or Fedora
that is your problem... it's your pattern of usage that is fighting
against the trend.

Craig


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