Sudo for the desktop

[Grumpy Mike]

I know I can log on as root but is there a way of doing a drag and drop desktop operation temporarily as root when I log on as Pi?
Having googled this I see there are some flavors of Linux you can do this with. Is there any way of doing this with Raspbain?

[jojopi]

Do you mean drag and drop in the sense "move"? That is not a task I can easily imagine needing root privileges for. Do you have any specific examples where it would have been useful? It might be better to change the permissions on the files you are working with.

[Grumpy Mike]

Do you mean drag and drop in the sense "move"?

Yes

That is not a task I can easily imagine needing root privileges for.

Yes suppose you want to put something in a directory that is owned by root, like putting a customised wallpaper image in a directory or ejecting an SD card as a user that was first mounted under root.
I am rather fed up of constantly quitting X logging out, log in as root, startx, doing the move copy or what ever, then quitting X, logging out, logging back in as Pi and startx again. Personally I have better things to do with my life.

[rasbeer]

I haven't done this on a Pi, but I think if you start the filemanager (eg thunar or whatever) from a terminal window, like this:

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gksu thunar &

it has root privileges (& also doesn't freeze the terminal window).

Using sudo instead of gksu is similar (but different in some subtle way I've never grasped).

[JeremyF]

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sudo pcmanfm 

[jojopi]

Yes suppose you want to put something in a directory that is owned by root, like putting a customised wallpaper image in a directory or ejecting an SD card as a user that was first mounted under root.
I am rather fed up of constantly quitting X logging out, log in as root, startx, doing the move copy or what ever, then quitting X, logging out, logging back in as Pi and startx again. Personally I have better things to do with my life.

A customised wallpaper can and should live in your home directory with your other personal files, and be owned by you, so that you can back it up separately from the base operating system. The only exception to that is if you (as system administrator) want to make the image available to all users. But even in that case you should not drag it into any of the standard artwork directories, where it might get clobbered by a future package update. Instead you should put it somewhere under /usr/local/, or in some other site-specific directory that you create, such as /home/grumpy. Notice that /usr/local/ is writeable by group "staff", so "sudo usermod -aG staff pi" gives pi permission to drag stuff there (after next login). There is no reason that /home/grumpy could not be writeable by pi, or mike, or whoever is deemed the sysadmin.

I do not have a card reader to test with, and I am not sure what you are using it for, how you are mounting it, or why want to be able to unmount as a different user. But I suspect that Tools→Open Current Folder as Root in the file manager will make the eject icon appear.

As well as being inconvenient, it is definitely not advisable to run startx as root. There is always a better way.

[Grumpy Mike]

Thanks.
I know what I want to do and as usual Linux is stopping me.
What a nanny operating system.

[Nr90]

you could open a terminal and type
sudo nautilus (or w/e file manager you use)
LXDE as installed does not ask for root permission when you're trying to do something that requires root like some other distro's.

[Grumpy Mike]

OK thanks I will give that a go in the morning.

[jojopi]

I know what I want to do and as usual Linux is stopping me.
What a nanny operating system.

Apparently, what you want to do is drag files into places that even a sysadmin would not expect to be writing to. Presumably so you can then announce that "Things break very quickly with Linux, it is not a very stable platform."

If you were complaining that GPIO access needed privileges and was hard to delegate, then you would actually have a point. But everyday user and programmer tasks do not require privileges unless you are doing them in the wrong way.

Anyway, pcmanfm's Tools→Open Current Folder as Root is totally happy to allow stupid things like dragging JPEGs into /. I do see how that is a nanny operating system, unless you mean there is a evil nanny who fails to stop you getting into trouble.

[jackokring]

before starting X or exit to the command line.

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sudo startx

In any terminal, (or even make a bash user config script later)

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sudo bash

and type the following to lose sudo (note # and $ prompt)

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exit

You will not be protected from any typing errors that may harm the data on the SD.

OK?

[Burngate]

... stupid things like dragging JPEGs into /. I don't see how that is a nanny operating system, unless you mean there is an evil nanny who fails to stop you getting into trouble.

(edited slightly, my italics)
Nanny tells kids "Don't run in the road" - good Nanny.
Nanny tells grandpa "Eat up your greens - they'll make you big and strong" - bad Nanny

Okay, I break my Pi, it's my Pi and I'll do what I want. ***** Nanny.

Use RISC OS. Nanny doesn't go there.

[Burngate]

***** Nanny.

I can't think of a verb with five letters that would fit there. Apart from "quote" which doesn't make sense.
An adjective that works is "silly"

[Grumpy Mike]

***** Nanny.

I can't think of a verb with five letters that would fit there. Apart from "quote" which doesn't make sense.
An adjective that works is "silly"

It is like passwords, they don't always have the same number of *s as letters typed

[jojopi]

Okay, I break my Pi, it's my Pi and I'll do what I want. ***** Nanny.
Use RISC OS. Nanny doesn't go there.

But there is no nanny here either. Even the daft thing that Mike originally asked for (but does not really need) — the ability to drag files into system directories, using a specific GUI — can indeed be done.

[pluggy]

An alternative which I use all the time is to ssh into the pi with a sftp client as root from another machine and shuffle files around. Winscp is one for windows, the Nautilus file manager in Linux does it as standard The Pi is big enough to do the multi user thing.

Option 2 : You can start up an alternative tty on the pi itself by pressing ctrl alt f2, logging in as root and then starting a second gui with startx. You then have a gui as root. you can then switch back to the standard user with ctrl alt f7. to switch back to the root gui you press ctrl alt f8. You can switch backwards and forwards at will.

[jojopi]

You can switch bacwards and forwards at will.

Remember to release and re-press Ctrl+Alt between each switch, because the X servers cannot see raw keystrokes that started on a different console.

Are you able to share any examples of when you might need to "shuffle files around" as root? It sound very dangerous and unnecessary. (As opposed to editing files as root, which I concede is occasionally useful.)

[pluggy]

Its what GM wanted to do. More often than not I'm running the pi headless and using it as some form of server, logging in as root is something I do all the time. Its very convenient to use a GUI without actually having to fire one up on the Pi. Editing textfiles in gedit on my Ubuntu box beats faffing around with vi,pico etc from a command line.

[jojopi]

You said that you "shuffle files around" "as root" "with a sftp client" "all the time". Not edit them. I am interested to know whether you are shuffling files that are controlled by the packaging system, and if so how this can be useful, or if you have ended up with data files owned by root.