In KDE SC 4, I used to set my applications to have special "root theme colors". I liked running dolphin and kate as root using kdesudo to be able to maneuver system folders and files. I would run systemsettings with kdesudo and everything I did there would affect all the other apps I ran with kdesudo. Now if I run kdesudo systemsettings5, I get a light breeze theme even when I set the colors to the dark theme obsidian, kate also has the light breeze theme. dolphin however seems to pick it up, but kate, konsole and systemsettings5 don't. Originally the fonts were aliased and horrible as well. I copied all my user settings to the root users folder and the fontconfig I had there cleaned up that for even the apps that aren't responding to systemsettings5. Kdesudo systemsettings5 shows the settings I had set there, but they don't affect kdesudo apps.

When I run gparted and kdepartition editor from my normal menus they look nice and use my normal system theme. I'd like somehow to get my other root programs themed and consistent. Any idea what is different? Is there a known proper way to run root programs to use the root users theme? Gparted from the menu uses kdesudo but kdepartition manager doesn't but they both use my users theme.

vayu wrote:dolphin however seems to pick it up, but kate, konsole and systemsettings5 don't.

Probably because dolphin is still a KDE4 application and is using the KDE4 settings.

Any idea what is different? Is there a known proper way to run root programs to use the root users theme?

The partition manager probably uses the option "Run as different user" which uses kdesu to switch.

So try to use kdesu instead of kdesudo. That works fine here (I don't have kdesudo installed):
If I change root's color scheme with "kdesu systemsettings5", "kdesu kwrite" does use this changed theme.

The KF5 version of kdesu is part of the "kde-cli-tools" package, but unfortunately Debian doesn't seem to install it in /usr/bin/ or similar, so you'd have to run it via "/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libexec/kf5/kdesu" or "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libexec/kf5/kdesu" (depending whether you have a 32bit or 64bit system).
You can of course symlink it to /usr/bin/ (or any other directory in your PATH) yourself to make things easier, or even add the directory to your path.

wolfi323 wrote:The KF5 version of kdesu is part of the "kde-cli-tools" package, but unfortunately Debian doesn't seem to install it in /usr/bin/ or similar, so you'd have to run it via "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libexec/kf5/kdesu"

I did indeed have those tools installed and found kdesu in that directory. Unfortunately it had the same result. That gave me the idea of creating a launcher for kate in ./local/share/applications and then going to the menu editor and setting it "run as a different user". That had the same effect as running it with kdesudo or kdesu, and also after I quit, it gave a popup with "KDEInit could not launch '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libexec/kf5/kdesu'" KDE partition editor has the same check mark in the menu editor, gives me my local user theme and doesn't give that kdeinit error. I wonder what's different.

vayu wrote:

wolfi323 wrote:The KF5 version of kdesu is part of the "kde-cli-tools" package, but unfortunately Debian doesn't seem to install it in /usr/bin/ or similar, so you'd have to run it via "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libexec/kf5/kdesu"

I did indeed have those tools installed and found kdesu in that directory. Unfortunately it had the same result.

Sorry, no idea then. As mentioned, it works fine here for me on openSUSE.
Maybe wipe out all config files for root? They might have been corrupted. At least there have been problems like this in Plasma5 in the past (config entries got written twice, so changes did not have effect), but they should have been fixed by now.

That gave me the idea of creating a launcher for kate in ./local/share/applications and then going to the menu editor and setting it "run as a different user".

No need for creating something in .local/share/applications first. The menu editor will create those files as necessary anyway...

That had the same effect as running it with kdesudo or kdesu, and also after I quit, it gave a popup with "KDEInit could not launch '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libexec/kf5/kdesu'" KDE partition editor has the same check mark in the menu editor, gives me my local user theme and doesn't give that kdeinit error.

If you entered "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libexec/kf5/kdesu" into the menu editor, that's propably not a good idea. The checkbox "Run as a different user" should use that anyway.

I wonder what's different.

Yeah, me too. In particular, what's different to my openSUSE system, where this works.
As mentioned above, maybe the existing config for root interferes.

Otherwise, there seem to be Kubuntu specifics bugs regarding the KDE4 settings, Debian might have the same too, no idea...
See https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... ug/1451564 e.g.

wolfi323 wrote:Otherwise, there seem to be Kubuntu specifics bugs regarding the KDE4 settings, Debian might have the same too, no idea...
See https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... ug/1451564 e.g.

That's very interesting because my regular user is fine, but the kdesu user has that bug too and needs a double click for everything. I'm sure things will only get better. Overall things are great and I imagine everything is only going to get better. SC 4 started out very rough and turned into the best computing platform I ever had. Thanks for your help.