Updating key posts that use `gksu`

Question

This morning I saw this question

sudo is not known on line one and gksu is not installing because of the problem

It was obvious from the post that OP was trying to use the answer to a canonical post, which used gksu, until I edited it after seeing the new question.

In this case, I think the edit was justified and even somewhat important, since APT will not work if the sources list is unreadable, and if APT does not work, then installing gksu, which used to be installed by default but is not in later versions of Ubuntu, is not possible.

I wondered whether we should consider checking some of our other highly upvoted posts and possibly changing gksu if it's likely to cause problems like this. Any thoughts/ideas of what to look for?

Answer 1

Yes, we should be looking for gksu and fixing them, at least on canonical questions. However, this fix needs to be a multi-faceted approach.

First off, it's important to know why gksu and gksudo doesn't come with Ubuntu anymore. You're more than welcome to read this whole post, but I'll just trim the fat:

gksu is not recommended any more and it may be removed entirely from future issues of Ubuntu. In general the development team would prefer us not to use GUI applications as root but to use sudo and the command line instead.

Now, it's important to take this with a grain of salt, because these are developers after all, and developers aren't always the best at knowing what's good for noob users.

Therefore, we can begin to design a multi-phase solution:

1. Antiquate gksu
   Anywhere that gksu is used or exists, we can add a little note saying effectively the following:

   Since Ubuntu 13.04, gksu has been deprecated and is no longer installed by default with Ubuntu. It is recommended that you use alternate ways of doing . If you absolutely need this package, run sudo apt install gksu.

   However, this doesn't exactly solve the problem, as there's a very clear reason as to why gksu is no longer really recommended. Just throwing this on won't help people, and might in fact cause weirder problems down the line (plus the fact that gksu might stop existing any moment).

2. Encourage Use of Specific Tools
   Source management can be taken care of using the GUI "Software and Updates" tool, which is far less risky to users if something goes wrong. Similar tools exist for other Ubuntu components. If nothing of the sort exists, it's probably something your average run-of-the-mill user should be doing, bringing me to the next point.

3. Just Learn The [CENSORED] Terminal!
   If a user is trying to do something pretty advanced, there's no need to take root actions from the GUI. If this is the case, we can just get rid of gksu gedit and replace it with sudo nano or whatever preferred text editor.

   This option also encourages some UX friction for root actions, which is a very good thing. Root powers are dangerous, and should be isolated. By letting any user get access to root through a GUI, it might open up a huge window to allow even more problems to sneak in (e.g. "I accidentally deleted /etc from my file manager because I had a root Nautilus open and I didn't know that it was a root one. Halp!").

   As for why, see that the Ubuntu dev team says, and what this answer says. In short, root access from the GUI is bad, and sudo in the GUI is also bad.

In short, yes, we need to get rid of gksu and replace it with either the proper GUI solution to the problem, or a command that can run fully in the terminal. Using sudo to bring up graphical things is just a bad idea and can lead to so much trouble that it's just not even a good idea to try.