From the discussions I have had since asking the question you refer to and before providing the answer I gave it seems that for raring at least there is no problem with installing and using gksu. However in the longer term some of the developers want to phase it out.

They believe policy-kit offers finer control and pkexec is a front end to that.

We need to be careful telling people to use sudo with graphical programs as while it's normally OK, there can be problems has has been explained in several questions on Ask Ubuntu such as this one.

It will be easier for users if we stick to one method for graphical programs as otherwise we will need to maintain a list of which commands can use sudo and which ones need more care.

sudo -i is safe since $HOME and $PATH are those of the root user which is how gksu and gksudo works. This would be my preference.

Edit: Based on a comment from Paddy Landau on the original question; that gksudo and gksu are not the same; and my subsequent investigation as a result confirming this. We (and this includes me) should never have recommended gksu: gksudo is safer though it appears that there are very few cases where it matters.

sudo -i remains a safe solution on all currently supported versions of Ubuntu.

From the discussions I have had since asking the question you refer to and before providing the answer I gave it seems that for raring at least there is no problem with installing and using gksu. However in the longer term some of the developers want to phase it out.

They believe policy-kit offers finer control and pkexec is a front end to that.

We need to be careful telling people to use sudo with graphical programs as while it's normally OK, there can be problems has has been explained in several questions on Ask Ubuntu such as this one.

It will be easier for users if we stick to one method for graphical programs as otherwise we will need to maintain a list of which commands can use sudo and which ones need more care.

sudo -i is safe since $HOME and $PATH are those of the root user which is how gksu and gksudo works. This would be my preference.

Edit: Based on a comment from Paddy Landau on the original question; that gksudo and gksu are not the same; and my subsequent investigation as a result confirming this. We (and this includes me) should never have recommended gksu: gksudo is safer though it appears that there are very few cases where it matters.

sudo -i remains a safe solution on all currently supported versions of Ubuntu.

From the discussions I have had since asking the question you refer to and before providing the answer I gave it seems that for raring at least there is no problem with installing and using gksu. However in the longer term some of the developers want to phase it out.

They believe policy-kit offers finer control and pkexec is a front end to that.

We need to be careful telling people to use sudo with graphical programs as while it's normally OK, there can be problems has has been explained in several questions on Ask Ubuntu such as this one.

It will be easier for users if we stick to one method for graphical programs as otherwise we will need to maintain a list of which commands can use sudo and which ones need more care.

sudo -i is safe since $HOME and $PATH are those of the root user which is how gksu and gksudo works. This would be my preference.

From the discussions I have had since asking the question you refer to and before providing the answer I gave it seems that for raring at least there is no problem with installing and using gksu. However in the longer term some of the developers want to phase it out.

They believe policy-kit offers finer control and pkexec is a front end to that.

We need to be careful telling people to use sudo with graphical programs as while it's normally OK, there can be problems has has been explained in several questions on Ask Ubuntu such as this one.

It will be easier for users if we stick to one method for graphical programs as otherwise we will need to maintain a list of which commands can use sudo and which ones need more care.

sudo -i is safe since $HOME and $PATH are those of the root user which is how gksu and gksudo works. This would be my preference.

Edit: Based on a comment from Paddy Landau on the original question; that gksudo and gksu are not the same; and my subsequent investigation as a result confirming this. We (and this includes me) should never have recommended gksu: gksudo is safer though it appears that there are very few cases where it matters.

sudo -i remains a safe solution on all currently supported versions of Ubuntu.