How can I install nautilus-gksu?

Question

I heard about nautilus-gksu and would like to install it. Unfortunately, when I try, I get this:

glemi@XPS:~$ sudo apt-get install nautilus-gksu
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package nautilus-gksu

How and where can I get this package?

Solution 1

Apparently nautilus-gksu has not been in the Ubuntu repositories since 12.04.

I got the below from: http://www.upubuntu.com/2012/09/open-files-and-folders-as-root-from.html

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:upubuntu-com/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nautilus-gksu

Then restart nautilus with this command:

nautilus -q

I didn't try this myself, and don't know if there's a better repository to add than upubuntu; it's also supposed to be available from the Linux Mint repositories from my quick Google search. If you Google for alternates, I would recommend limiting the results to the last year, to avoid obsolete references.

Solution 2

nautilus-gksu don't work anymore for a long time since version 12.04 of Ubuntu.

In replace for this use "Nautilus Admin" extension where is available in the official Ubuntu repositories:

sudo apt-get install nautilus-admin

What it do?

Runs Nautilus As Root for any folder and for files open as root with gedit

How to use?

Inside Nautilus, Right-click on any Nautilus file/folder and then Open as Administrator/Edit as Administrator

Solution 3

In Ubuntu 18.04 you cannot use nautilus-gksu anymore.

Alternative way to use a gksu command is to alias it as follows:

function __gksufn() {
  "$1" admin://"$2"
}

export alias gksu=__gksufn

In this way you can open files as gksu gedit /path/to/your/file.txt

Comments

[Glemi]

Thank you for the suggestion Manishearth - I believe my Internet connection works just fine (otherwise I couldn't have posted this question here, right?). There is no proxy that I know of that I'm behind (if there were I wouldn't know how to configure it). I ran sudo apt-get update though but it didn't help. By the way, I can install other packages without problem so I doubt it has anything to do with the Internet connection or how apt is configured.

[Manishearth]

@Glemi Did apt-get update work or did it return an error too? If not, then I don't know what the issue is.

[Glemi]

It seems to work like a charm - no errors. Does installing nautilus-gksu work on your computer?

[Manishearth]

@Glemi yes, it does

[Glemi]

Excellent answer - thank you very much Borax Bob! I used the upubuntu repository and it worked right away. I wonder why they would remove such a useful package from the standard repository.

[Glemi]

I would up-vote your answer if I had the required reputation.

[Gaʀʀʏ]

I received "E: unable to locate package nautilus-gksu" on the third step.

[GSazheniuk]

It seems it is no more located in that repository. Could you please update your answer or comment where one can get 'gksu' from? Thank you.

[Eben Kadile]

Thanks for this. Maybe an obvious question, but is the alias you wrote supposed to go in ~/.bashrc? After writing it and saving I tried gksu nautilus in the terminal and it was unrecognized. I tried making a .bash_aliases file, which is accessed by .bashrc, and putting it in there but it still didn't work.

[Matteo Gaggiano]

@EbenCowley Is important to notice that the __gksufn() function must exists in the same environment of the alias, so I advice you to put the script into the .bash_rc at the end of the file. Just pay attention to export part, it's important to know that the export will make alias available in the current environment.