f20 - gedit

[David G. Miller]

Patrick O'Callaghan <pocallaghan <at> gmail.com> writes:

> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, Dec 20, 2013 at 11:09 AM, Tom Horsley <horsley1953 <at> gmail.com>
wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Dec 2013 00:35:45 -0300
> Germán A. Racca wrote:
> > Anyway, it is safer to use something like VIM to edit files as root, I
> > only tested gedit because I saw your email, but as root I use only VIM
> > to edit files :)
> This again? Please give a link to the giant list of exploits
> that have actually happened because someone ran a GUI program
> as root. I keep seeing this warning, yet no one has ever
> provided an actual example of any kind of root exploit happening.
> 
> IIRC most comments are about not running the desktop itself as root,
rather than specific apps.
> 
> poc
> 
I've found it isn't even something external or malicious.  More along the
lines of X won't start and one needs to edit xorg.conf (or its predecessors)
to fix it using vim or emacs.  I've seen people re-install because they
couldn't fix X without a GUI editor or broke it worse because they totally
jacked up xorg.conf using vi.

Cheers,
Dave