xubuntu - password always fails when trying to install language support

[Derek Kaye]

Binary package hint: language-selector

in xubuntu, going to Applications>System>Language Support results in the application saying that language support needs to be installed.
Next a password box is given that refuses to accept my password.

After some investigation, it appears that running "gksu gnome-language-selector" does not work, but "gksudo gnome-language-selector" does.

Is it possible that gnome-language-selector is calling gksu in su mode rather than sudo mode?

dezza@Demetria:~$ uname -a
Linux Demetria 2.6.32-22-generic-pae #33-Ubuntu SMP Wed Apr 28 14:57:29 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux
dezza@Demetria:~$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
Release: 10.04

[Derek Kaye (kayedj)]

After a quick look through the code, in LanguageSelector/gtk/GtkLanguageSelector.py, gksu is mentioned on lines 253, 597 and 617.

It is my understanding that changing these to gksudo, or alternatively adding the option --sudo-mode, or -S should fix this.

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

Thank you for reporting this issue and taking the time to thoroughly examine the issue. On my fresh Xubuntu 10.04 installation, I show /usr/bin/gksudo as a symbolic link to /usr/bin/gksu. Further, I show the file /etc/alternatives/libgksu-gconf-defaults containing a single line:
    /aps/gksu/sudo-mode true
The way this appears to me is that gksudo and gksu are exactly the same command, and, include '--sudo-mode true' if no other system changes have been made.

Do you show the same symbolic link in /usr/bin ?

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

I also can not reproduce this issue. My password was accepted immediately when I typed it in.

[Derek Kaye (kayedj)]

Hi Charlie,

It appears that I also have the same as you (assuming "/aps/" was a typo):

dezza@Demetria:~$ ls -l /usr/bin/gksudo
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 May 31 18:24 /usr/bin/gksudo -> gksu
dezza@Demetria:~$ cat /etc/alternatives/libgksu-gconf-defaults
/apps/gksu/sudo-mode true
dezza@Demetria:~$

This is an install that started from Lucid alpha 3, so the issue may have originated there. I just found it very strange that it accepted gksudo, but not gksu.

Is there any other config file that may cause it?

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

I added a task for "policykit" to have that looked at. It is possible that something to do with that is interfering with the command in this situation.

[Arne Goetje (arnegoetje)]

Turns out this is indeed a policykit issue.

[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. Thanks for taking the time to make Ubuntu better!