running gparted as non-root user displays no graphical error message

[Eliah Kagan]

Binary package hint: gparted

When gparted is run as a non-root user, it quits immediately without displaying any graphical user interface elements. Running it from the command line reveals this error message as the sole output:

Inhibit all polling failed: Only uid 0 is authorized to inhibit the daemon

Unless gparted is modified to use PolicyKit (or to automatically invoke gksu, su-to-root, or the like), it seems to me that it ought to display an error graphically when it is run with inadequate credentials.

Furthermore, even when run from the command-line, gparted never explicitly states that it needs to be run as root. The error it does display suggests that it does...but only to a user who knows that inhibiting polling is essential to gparted's usability, and that the superuser has uid 0.

There is a significant mitigating factor: gparted is typically run from a menu, which actually executes the command "gksu gparted". But results of a web search suggest that inexperienced users of gparted frequently fail to realize that it needs to be run as root, and frequently don't figure it out themselves (even when they run it from a terminal see the error message).

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: gparted 0.6.2-1ubuntu1.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-24.42-generic 2.6.35.8
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-24-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64
Date: Mon Jan 3 14:07:04 2011
InstallationMedia: Xubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Beta amd64 (20100406)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US.utf8
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 LC_MESSAGES=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gparted

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

Thanks for reporting this bug and any supporting documentation. Since this bug has enough information provided for a developer to begin work, I'm going to mark it as confirmed and let them handle it from here.

I don't understand why any inexperienced user would be running gparted from anything but the menu. Since they are "inexperienced", it is expected they will use the menu item until they gain experience.

Thanks for taking the time to make Ubuntu better!

[Eliah Kagan (degeneracypressure)]

You may be right. I am not confident that this is really a bug. (And I certainly take no issue with it having "wishlist" severity.)

However, there are two reasons why I think this may be an issue for inexperienced users:

(1) Searching the web for "gparted" and text from the error message that is written to the command line when it's run as a non-root user turns up recurring posts by novices asking why they can't get gparted to work.

(2) Even an inexperienced user, especially one who is at all familiar with the command-line, may try to run gparted by pressing Alt+F2 and typing "gparted" (it works for the PolicyKit-using system configuration tools), or by typing "gparted" into a command-line textbox panel applet. This produces silent failure. I think many users find menus provided by desktop environments (whether they be on Ubuntu or other operating systems) to be cumbersome and confusing, and prefer run their less frequently used programs by typing in their names.

[Curtis Gedak (gedakc)]

Thank you Eliah for bringing this bug to our attention.

A patch has been committed in the upstream git repository and will be included in the next upstream release of GParted (0.9.0).

The relevant git commit can be viewed at the following link:
http://git.gnome.org/browse/gparted/commit/?id=caa7656829bf53c645325a1a3a739d7e428bd0dc

[Curtis Gedak (gedakc)]

This enhancement has been included in the upstream GParted 0.8.1 released on May 23, 2011.

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

Thank you for the update. Now if we could just get GParted 0.8.1 into Oneiric.

[dino99 (9d9)]

Natty has reached EOL now. Is it still an issue ?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for gparted (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]