Why won't my password work in gksu?

Question

There are other questions similar, but none have answers for this situation.

Any time I enter my pw into the terminal, it works fine. But gsku thinks it's wrong. I've tried several times, and typing very slowly. I know I'm entering it correctly. Any ideas?

Answers to questions:

The answer linked doesn't apply because the gksu properties are set correctly.
Resetting the pw didn't help.
I was referring to the 10-key pad.

Are there any non-standard characters? These might be interpreted differently by sudo and a graphical application program. — sudodus, Dec 31 '16 at 19:00
@ sudodus No, only numbers. I've tried using the 10-key and the standard keys. — Keiva, Dec 31 '16 at 19:01
Does desgua's answer to Password not working in Graphical Applications (gksu)? Works with sudo help? You've said similar questions haven't helped you--can you give specific details about the other things you've found, why they're inapplicable, everything you have tried, and exactly what happened? How are you running gksu? You can edit your question to add this and any other possibly relevant information. — Eliah Kagan, Dec 31 '16 at 19:13
This is not a duplicate. The item you've linked to doesn't answer the question either. — James, Mar 13 '18 at 16:32

score -1 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 12 '20 at 14:37

-1

tl;dr: Try using gksudo instead.

Explanation

gksu makes you enter the root password. By default, Ubuntu does not have a password for the root user. gksudo makes you enter the password for an ordinary user that happens to have superuser privileges.

edited Jun 12 '20 at 14:37

Community

1

answered Dec 31 '16 at 19:07

PRH

229

1

If I am not mistaken, in Ubuntu gksu is an alias of gksudo, as the root password is not set by default. See http://askubuntu.com/questions/21033/what-is-the-difference-between-gksudo-and-gksu – user68186 Dec 31 '16 at 19:24
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@user68186 gksu and gksudo don't always act the same way on Ubuntu. Neither is an alias of the other, but it's true gksudo is a symbolic link to gksu, so the same executable runs whichever one is used. But that executable actually checks the name that was used to invoke it, and may behave differently depending on how the user has configured it. gksu should behave the same way as gksudo on Ubuntu, but unfortunately this seems to depend on how it was installed (not all Ubuntu flavors preinstall gksu and gkudo). – Eliah Kagan Dec 31 '16 at 19:52

Why won't my password work in gksu?

1 Answers1

Explanation