I found a (lengthy) guide to doing this but it is for gksu which is gone. I have to imagine there’s an easy way. I am running Ubuntu. There is no specific use case, it is just a feature I miss from windows.

EDIT: I always expect a degree of hostility and talking-down from the desktop Linux community, but the number of people in this thread telling me I am using my own computer that I bought with my own money in a way they don’t prefer while ignoring my question is just absurd and frankly should be deeply embarrassing for all of us. I have strongly defended the desktop Linux community for decades, but this experience has left a sour taste in my mouth.

Thank you to the few of you who tried to assist without judgement or assumptions.

  • Nik282000
    645·
    7 months ago

    Do not do this. “Run as Administrator” is a Windows answer to a Windows problem. The only time you should regularly need root privileges is installing software and editing system wide configuration files.

    • Revan343
      81·
      7 months ago

      It would occasionally be handy running gparted, but for as often as I need to do that sudo gparted works just fine

      • Nik282000
        22·
        7 months ago

        I’ve seen people say that a few times here but any time I use gparted I get the Gnome ‘enter password’ dialog which seems to work fine.

        • Revan343
          3·
          7 months ago

          I’m not on Gnome, variably either Xfce or LxQt, is probably what’s making the difference there

          • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
            20·
            7 months ago

            Sounds like you need to install polkit for the window manager you’re using (xfce-polkit or lxqt-policykit on arch). That should enable apps to request root using the login popup.