Turns out gksu is no longer installed by default. Some things still depend on it so it might be installed on your system - but on a clean install, it seems it's no longer required. As for why, see: http://askubuntu.com/questions/284306/why-is-gksu-no-longer-installed-by-default-in-raring-13-04

Historically we have used `gksu` a lot here but this changes means that in future, we should probably scale down its use in favour of plain `sudo` (or `sudo -i`). Use the comments and answers to hammer out a best-practice if you feel there is a technical issue here.

There is [a compelling argument][1] that we move to `pkexec`. I just tried it here (on Kubuntu 13.04) and it worked beautifully from the terminal, a run box and from a TTY (it has a text-only mode too), but it **doesn't work** on a 12.04 headless server and I don't know how this works on older desktops. Comments?

###Note: I'm *not* suggesting an edit storm!

I am not saying we should nuke every example of `gksu`. Users will be prompted to install it and they can do that...

I'm only suggesting that if you're writing a new answer, you avoid `gksu`.


  [1]: http://askubuntu.com/questions/78352/when-to-use-pkexec-vs-gksu-gksudo