Hello everybody,

I use KDE software on different platforms and for a long time now, and I should'v asked this long ago:

On some distros (Kubuntu for instance), KDE su asks my own password when I launch a GUI app requiring root privileges (as Partition Manager); but on some other distros (Arch or SUSE if my memory serves me well), it asks for root's password instead.

I couldn't find any settings for this behaviour, how can I specify which policy I prefer?

Thank you in advance.

Alexandre CATTEAU

alexandrecatteau wrote:Hello everybody,

I use KDE software on different platforms and for a long time now, and I should'v asked this long ago:

On some distros (Kubuntu for instance), KDE su asks my own password when I launch a GUI app requiring root privileges (as Partition Manager); but on some other distros (Arch or SUSE if my memory serves me well), it asks for root's password instead.

I couldn't find any settings for this behaviour, how can I specify which policy I prefer?

Thank you in advance.

Alexandre CATTEAU

The traditional way is that there is the root account and less powerful accounts for the ordinary users.
Distros and sometimes the users can decide:

(K)Ubuntu is having the root password locked and they are not using the kdesu. Kubuntu default the kdesudo. More: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo .

Debian let the user decide - https://wiki.debian.org/Root :

Password

At installation time, you are asked whether you want to use the root account or not.

The Arch Linux let the users do as they wish: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ar ... Principles

...It is targeted at the proficient GNU/Linux user, or anyone with a do-it-yourself attitude who is willing to read the documentation, and solve their own problems...

Hi.

Thank you Rog131 for the quick answer.

I feel a bit (a lot?) dumb not having noticed the difference between kdesu and kdesudo.
Still a question remains: how can tell Arch Linux that I want to use kdesudo and not kdesu?
I have seen that I could use update-alternatives on Debian/Ubuntu, but there is no equivalent on Arch...

alexandrecatteau wrote:Hi.


Still a question remains: how can tell Arch Linux that I want to use kdesudo and not kdesu?
I have seen that I could use update-alternatives on Debian/Ubuntu, but there is no equivalent on Arch...

By Arch 'Sudo' page ( https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/sudo ) -> 'Disable root login' ( https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/su ... root_login ):

There is how to tell the kdesu to use the sudo instead of the su.

About the kdesudo and the Arch the wiki page is telling:

Alternatively, install kdesudo (AUR), which has the added advantage of tab-completion for the command following

.

kdesudo (Aur): https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/kdesudo/

Thank you very much Rog131!

The doc says that the following command sets kdesu to use sudo rather than su:

Code: Select all

$ kwriteconfig5 --file kdesurc --group super-user-command --key super-user-command sudo

This means that one does not even need kdesudo!