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yaye

Member

Registered: 2018-01-01

Posts: 3  

Users and Groups Applet

Hello Devuan World,

I'm happily using Devuan MATE and like that I have the ability once again to login as root in X for system administration, as I did for many years before using sudo and gksu became prevalent. Are there any plans to allow the Users and Groups applet in MATE to be run by root in X? Currently it can be run by a regular user in X, but not by root. This is the reason I left Ubuntu and changed all the computers to Linux Mint. Now Mint has done the same thing and I'm looking for alternatives.

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Unregistered Desktop Linux User since 1998 (Red Hat 5.0 "Hurricane")

golinux

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 3,316  

Re: Users and Groups Applet

I have it running on jessie and wish that I could find it for ascii.  Anyway . . . i can look at some of the data as user but if i try to make a change it ALWAYS asks for my root PW.   If you are able to make changes without being root, something is not right.

FTR, I tried to install the jessie version on ascii and it failed . . . 

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yaye

Member

Registered: 2018-01-01

Posts: 3  

Re: Users and Groups Applet

Thanks for your reply. On my system, it runs just as it does on yours. If i am logged into X as a regular user and run the Users and Groups applet, it asks for the root password. After the root password is given, the applet comes up with the regular user shown.  The root account is not shown, which is okay with me in this situation. If I log into X as root and I try to run the applet, the applet window comes up but it is grayed out and a spinning circle is shown when the cursor is over the applet. I can't close it with the close button. I use the MATE System Monitor to end the mate-users-admin process and kill the applet.

Originally in GNOME and MATE, I could log in as root and run the applet.  When I could no longer do it in Ubuntu and complained about it, I was told in the Ubuntu Forums that it was part of their security model and that it had to do with Policy Kit.  When I showed them a situation where it was useful to run the applet as root in X, the post was deleted/hidden so that the forum users couldn't view it. To the credit of the Mint Forum administrators, they have not deleted/hidden a similar post.

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic. … 6#p1405476

Last edited by yaye (2018-01-27 03:42:59)

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Unregistered Desktop Linux User since 1998 (Red Hat 5.0 "Hurricane")