Comment 3 for bug 495424

More information:- This all started last night when I saw a warning triangle in the top panel. I clicked on it, this caused update manager to run - this was not an "automatic" update notification as I originally described. I think the update manager then gave a long list of (greyed out) applications - I really don't remember whether the list came up first or after I asked it to check. I then requested install and then I left the system for a while.

I have now rediscovered sudo su.