F14, can't run gedit as root

[twohot]

The point is that from F11 to F13, running gedit from the root shell prompt opens it.
# gedit /home/user/thefile

now it doesn't work. Instead you get a glib error. Looks like something is b0rked.
$ su -lc 'gedit /home/user/thefile is extra pain

[taytong888]

Hi,

Since I cannot upgrade FC13 to FC14, I installed FC14 directly onto its existing partition. Yumex does show that gedit IS installed. However, when I use gedit to verify the content of grub.conf file as below, I got error:

# gedit /boot/grub/grub.conf

(gedit:9969): EggSMClient-WARNING **: Failed to connect to the session manager: None of the authentication protocols specified are supported

What should I do next? Thanks a lot for your help.

[piga]

I have the same problem for many different applications, and not just when invoking the root account, on two different machines. This error is currently all that is stopping me from upgrading my own computer from 13 to 14, so I am anxious to find out if there is a fix available for it or not. If there is not one I am leery about upgrading knowing I would have to live with this. It seems to devalue the terminal.

[ozjd]

Do a search and you will find a number of threads on this. Seems the general idea is gedit needs the root environment so use su- (note the minus sign) not just su.

If that doesn't work do a search and have a look at some of the other threads.

[al_chem]

Originally Posted by piga

It seems to devalue the terminal.

One could very well argue that using the terminal to launch gedit instead of e.g. vi is what is actually devaluing it.

[JEO]

Originally Posted by twohot

The point is that from F11 to F13, running gedit from the root shell prompt opens it.
# gedit /home/user/thefile

now it doesn't work. Instead you get a glib error. Looks like something is b0rked.
$ su -lc 'gedit /home/user/thefile is extra pain

You are correct using just su does open gedit in F13. However, if you look in the terminal window there are many warnings:

GConf Error: Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)

When I used su - (su space dash) and then typed gedit I saw no warnings.

[hbaird]

I have to use "su "space" -" it won't work without the space.
Harold

[BradW]

I am having a similar problem. After su - from terminal, I can't open GEdit or Nautilus. The error is:

No protocol specified
Cannot open display

Same thing with su -l. If I log out of GNOME and then back in, it will start working. However, it also will start failing again sooner than later.

I have seen this problem in previous Fedora releases, but F13 was working fine.

Anyone else seeing this flavor of the problem?

Brad

[ozjd]

There are 2 ways to use su. Used with the minus sign it puts you in the root environment. Without you are still in the user's environment.
Do

su-
gedit "filename"

[bob]

Ozjd, what he's saying is that you'd need to add a space between "su" and "-" so it's "su -" instead of "su-". And yes, that's different in F14 than previous versions.

[ozjd]

Sorry my typo. Don't know why I did that as I type space when I use it.

[Arimus]

su - is actually the same as su -l

I've always used su - (or su -l <whoever I need to operate as> ) and never used su alone.

su alone as pointed out does not set the environment up and so alot of commands are likely to either misbehave, fail to execute at all.

[bob]

BTW, I've merged the threads to get all the ideas in one area. Interesting that vi and nano work with 'su' while emacs and gedit require "su -".

[DBelton]

I can verify that it is working the same as it has since Fedora 10 that I know of.

gedit has required "su -" (or su -l they are identical) to work properly, and wouldn't work with just "su"

The reason is as ChronoCloud stated above.

"su" doesn't create a root login shell, it just retains the environment of the user. "su -l" creates a root login shell so you have all of your environment variables and such set to root.

I ran into this way back around F9 or F10 with gedit, and F14 is still working the same way. (su has always worked this way that I know of, and was designed that way)

---------- Post added at 07:12 AM GMT ---------- Previous post was at 07:07 AM GMT ----------

Bob, the difference is that gedit is a GUI Gnome application and utilizes ORBit as a "middleman", and can't communicate properly unless the PROPER user name is set in the environment. (this is one of the reasons gedit requires "su -"

vi and nano aren't GUI Gnome apps.

[piga]

Originally Posted by al_chem

One could very well argue that using the terminal to launch gedit instead of e.g. vi is what is actually devaluing it.

Well, on a level I can agree with you there, but my point is more directed on the fact that after I "su" into any user account I can not launch any graphical applications. I do tend to use nano for most config files, but it causes a formatting error when editing grub.conf, which is what I was editing to turn off the graphical boot and turn off KMS.

But one of my main concerns seems to have been alleviated, while accessing the machine through SSH gedit does load. I was worried that this problem might also plague that as well. But it seems ot be all-right. It still does display some error messages though.

[hamish@griffindor ~]$ ssh -X 000.000.0.00
hamish@192.168.3.52's password: 
/usr/bin/xauth:  creating new authority file /home/hamish/.Xauthority
[hamish@ravenclaw ~]$ gedit
Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "pk-gtk-module": libpk-gtk-module.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

** (gedit:5369): WARNING **: AT-SPI: Accessibility bus not found - Using session bus.

[hamish@ravenclaw ~]$

EDIT: And the work-arounds specified in the thread do not seem to work:

[laura@ravenclaw ~]$ su -c gedit
Password: 
No protocol specified

(gedit:5515): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display: :0.0
[laura@ravenclaw ~]$ su -l
Password: 
[root@ravenclaw ~]# gedit
No protocol specified

(gedit:5584): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display: :0.0
[root@ravenclaw ~]#