On running gui applications as root

[Simon Farnsworth]

On Thursday 19 Nov 2015 13:56:32 Andrew Haley wrote:
> On 11/19/2015 01:03 PM, Simon Farnsworth wrote:
> > "sudo -e  /etc/hosts", will ... still work
> 
> Hold on, I think I may not be understanding something.  If "sudo -e
> /etc/hosts" will still work, why won't "sudo emacs /etc/hosts" ?
> 
> Andrew.

"sudo -e" creates a temporary file owned by you containing the file contents, 
then has your editor access it; when your editor exits, the temporary file's 
contents replace the original file.

"sudo emacs" runs emacs as a new user; AIUI, in the current Wayland security 
model, emacs running as another user cannot access the Wayland server, because 
it's not the same user.

-- 
Simon Farnsworth