This should probably go into System & Utilities section, but for some reason I can't post anything there except for Konsole and Dolphin subsections.

Is there a way to configure apper to ask for user password (if user has sudo rights), rather than for root password? It doesn't make sense to use root password for updates. Running it with kdesudo of course works, but I want the integrated option (i.e. launching it from the system tray) to use user password, rather than root's.

If it matters, I'm using current Debian testing.

You need to adjust the PolicyKit permissions I believe in order to achieve this.
Please see System Settings > Actions Policy.

For some reason I don't have such option in my KDE System Settings (Debian testing). Does it require some optional packages to install?

in openSUSE it's polkit-kde-kcmmodules-1, there's also a polkit-kde-agent-1 package - look in you repos for something similar

Thanks, I have something like this installed (but still, no such option in System Settings):

polkit-kde-1 0.99.0-3 KDE dialogs for PolicyKit

The missing option must something Debian specific. I'll ask around from Debian folks.

this is how I think it is supposed to appear, the packagekit options are not shipped with openSUSE, so maybe Debian also decided to not include them

What is the binary which actually shows this UI? I can try running it manually, or checking if it's even present.

You need to run System Settings, then open Actions Policy.

As I pointed above, I don't have such option on my Debian testing system. I suspect it's some Debian quirk and it's not enabled.

Try searching for PolicyKit or PolKit packages which relate to KDE and install them. In theory, it should be available.

OK, while I couldn't find the UI, I figured how to configure policy kit manually, to achieve what was needed (i.e. being able to update with Apper using user's password, rather than root's).

For that, one can create a configuration file like this:
/etc/polkit-1/localauthority.conf.d/60-desktop-policy.conf

Code: Select all

[Configuration]
AdminIdentities=unix-user:user1;unix-user:user2

This will give administrative permissions to user1 and user2, and therefore will allow them to perform the update. (Two users are just an example, you can add any users like that, and alternatively just add a group, see man pklocalauthority for more examples). I think this should be a default for desktop single user installations really.