I found a (lengthy) guide to doing this but it is for gksu which is gone. I have to imagine there’s an easy way. I am running Ubuntu. There is no specific use case, it is just a feature I miss from windows.

EDIT: I always expect a degree of hostility and talking-down from the desktop Linux community, but the number of people in this thread telling me I am using my own computer that I bought with my own money in a way they don’t prefer while ignoring my question is just absurd and frankly should be deeply embarrassing for all of us. I have strongly defended the desktop Linux community for decades, but this experience has left a sour taste in my mouth.

Thank you to the few of you who tried to assist without judgement or assumptions.

  • boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net
    41·
    8 months ago

    This is very easy in KDE but Desktop entries work the same on all Desktops.

    See this post where I mentioned how to do this with running Konsole with root.

    In general, use polkit instead of sudo, every desktop has a GUI dialog that pops up.

    pkexec APPNAME

    And add this as a desktop action, following the guide.

    [Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Exec=konsole
Icon=utilities-terminal
Categories=System;TerminalEmulator;
Actions=root
Name=Konsole
GenericName=Terminal
Comment="$GenericName"

[Desktop Action root]
Name=root
Icon=folder-root-symbolic
Exec=pkexec konsole

    In the specific case of Konsole you could use a profile instead.

    Be aware that nearly no program should be ran as root. Also not Konsole. The program is ran as the user, and can enter a root shell, but never run random apps as root. Not even many terminal apps are made to be ran as root, for example use sudoedit instead of sudo nano for editing files.

    To view and change system files in KDE, type admin:/ into the location bar.

    Running apps as root doesnt work with Wayland, and for a good reason.

    • Jediwan@lemy.lolOP
      22·
      8 months ago

      Thanks for this, but I have a question:

      Running apps as root doesnt work with Wayland, and for a good reason.

      Are you sure about this? I run GUI apps as root all the time and have Wayland.