HOWTO: easily set up a graphical super user prompt

[annafil]

Motivation:

Why a graphical su prompt? Because sometimes it is a lot easier to set up a task once to be automated with the click of a button on the panel than having to type in the command all the time.

There are lots of alternatives for program developers to use, such as zenity and consolehelper, but these are a lot more complicated to set up than it is to open a terminal and type the relevant command. The only simple solution is gksu. However, gksu is still on the wishlist awaiting someone to maintain it, and for one reason or another tends to fail to compile on the later Fedora releases. Luckily, now there is another candidate - ktsuss.

KTSUSS (Keep the su simple, stupid) is a project by one nominus to create a simple gksu replacement. Its status is "stable" and it was fairly recently updated.

At the moment, there are no pre-built packages available. I will work on putting some up here.

To install:

Download the rpm from here (thanks leigh123!) or if that link doesn't work for some reason, here.

In your terminal type:

su -c "yum install ktsuss-1.3-1.fc8.noarch.rpm"

OR if you use Smart

su -c "smart install ktsuss-1.3-1.fc8.noarch.rpm"

To install from source:

Download the source from here . At the time of this writing this is version 1.3.

Following this, simply unpack the archive and run:

./configure --prefix=/usr

make

su -c "make install"

As far as I can see, the program does not have any build dependencies besides the usual development packages required to build this app.

To run:

Just like you would with gksu, type

ktsuss <your command here>

and you will receive a prompt much like in the screenshot attached to this post.

That's it folks!

[leigh123linux]

I will make it even easier . ( I packaged it into a rpm )


F8 ( ktsuss-1.3-1.fc8.noarch.rpm )

http://www.linux-ati-drivers.homecal...fc8.noarch.rpm

[annafil]

Lol! I was just mid-way uploading my own rpm! Thanks, will edit the original post

[bbfuller]

There is also 'kdesu' to do that.

As you say, in a terminal:

kdesu <your command here>

Nice to have an alternative though

[annafil]

bbfuller: I read about kdesu, but couldn't find it in the repos (should it be there?) so had to do things the hard way

[bbfuller]

Hello annafil

I've been thinking about that since I wrote my post above.

The machine I tried it on with Gnome has KDE on it as well. I don't think I have a Gnome only machine as KDE is my preferred desktop.

I'm pretty sure that it isn't a stand alone package but something in one of the KDE main packages and probably won't be any easier to install than ktsuss unless you want other KDE packages.

Yes, having had a look it seems to be inside the kdebase package.

[annafil]

That explains it then, thanks bbfuller! That also explains why kdesu is available for Fedora but not gksu - gksu is a standalone package.

[leadgolem]

I rolled my own utility to accomplish this a while ago. It is called root-sh, works via consolehelper, and can be obtained from here.

[annafil]

Loeadgolem: I'd love to try your utility as well, but I get a download error from filefront. Any mirrors?

Edit: and then, error message and all, it downloaded. Odd

[leadgolem]

Not exactly a mirror, but I attached it to this post.
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/...8&postcount=21