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I know I am not root because I cannot browse packages. First, I am aware of this page, but it is not working for me. After following those instruction, I get the prompt when I open Sublime from Unity, but I am still not able to browse packages. If I open sublime using gksu subl in the terminal, nothing happens. If I do sudo subl it opens and I can browse packages. Is it OK to open sublime as sudo every time instead of gksu?

Edit: Actually, when I open sublime from Unity, it prompts for the password, then doesn't open at all.

Edit: gksudo subl has the same effect as gksu. I installed Sublime from the website (clicked the Ubuntu 64 link, it downloaded, clicked the download, it took me to Software Center). "which subl" returns /usr/bin/subl. gksu is installed. Glutanimate, yes that is what I mean. Any idea what is happening then? I can only browse them if I use sudo.

/usr/share/applications/sublime-text.desktop:

[Desktop Entry] 
Version=1.0 
Type=Application 
Name=Sublime Text
GenericName=Text Editor 
Comment=Sophisticated text editor for code, markup and prose 
Exec=gksu /opt/sublime_text/sublime_text %F
Terminal=false 
MimeType=text/plain; 
Icon=sublime-text
Categories=TextEditor;Development; 
StartupNotify=true
Actions=Window;Document;

[Desktop Action Window] 
Name=New Window
Exec=/opt/sublime_text/sublime_text -n 
OnlyShowIn=Unity;

[Desktop Action Document] 
Name=New File
Exec=/opt/sublime_text/sublime_text --command new_file
OnlyShowIn=Unity;
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michaelAdam
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  • (Really) silly question, but you *did* install `gksu` didn't you? It isn't installed by default. – Jacob Vlijm Aug 30 '14 at 06:00
  • When you say "browsing packages", do you mean the ST package manager? I am asking because you shouldn't need root to browse/install/remove Sublime Text packages. – Glutanimate Aug 30 '14 at 07:21

1 Answers1

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When gksu/gksudo doesn't work or is unavailable, you can use sudo -H instead.

If you run a graphical program with sudo instead of gksu/gksudo, you should use sudo -H ... (or sudo -i ...) instead of just sudo ....

sudo -H subl

sudo -i subl

(Neither plain sudo ... nor those ways will typically work from the Unity dash, because they need a terminal on which to prompt you for your password. But you can run them from the Terminal.)

The main reason it's considered bad to run a graphical program with normal sudo is that this runs the application with its HOME environment variable set to non-root caller's home directory (/home/username) rather than root's home directory (/root). That often causes configuration files that should belong to the regular user, to belong to root instead (and inaccessible).

Running sudo with the -H flag prevents this by making sure root's home directory is used instead.

sudo -i does this and more: it runs a program in a simulated root login session. I'm not aware of any strong reasons to prefer one or the other of sudo -H and sudo -i, when the goal is just to run graphical programs as root without problems.

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Eliah Kagan
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  • When will pkexec grow up, so that we can skip this mess? – muru Aug 30 '14 at 15:24
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    @muru [polkit/PolicyKit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polkit) is quite capable., but `pkexec` intentionally won't run graphical apps without polkit profiles. Usually `gksu`/`gksudo` work; even with this weird situation (that may be a bug but I don't want to rush and assume that), I don't know that a polkit way of running arbitrary apps as root would be more reliable overall. *But there is a [polkit-based `gksu` implementation](https://wiki.gnome.org/action/show/Apps/Attic/gksu) ([README](https://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-branches/ubuntu/utopic/gksu-polkit/utopic/view/head:/README)).* – Eliah Kagan Aug 30 '14 at 19:15