Adventures in Uh-Oh???? Including Ubuntu

[Grumpus]

Just a heads up when using nautilus in root mode, don't open Firefox to view an html page.
If you have already done this and not had an issue, it's probably my butchering of Ubuntu which caused this.

Resets Firefox to default
. . . and does not show the items (File, Edit, View, History, Bookmarks, Tools and Help) in the Ubiquity menu bar while open under nautilus as root.
Probably an ownership thing where, should Firefox not have been configured in like manner in the root world, it trumps conditions and leaves the default back in user mode. Plus restores all the crap one may be blocking in NoScript like VZW, Amazon, etc.

Settings lost for Classic Theme Restorer, Setting Sanity, NoScript all had to be restored.
Throbber Restorer seemed unaffected as did Ghostery.

[barbaz]

To be expected. The root user (even when invoked through su[do]) is not only a completely different user account (so you don't get your per-user / "normal" profile), if invoked through su[do] it won't have access to some of the "normal" things (like the system menu bar) that you have when running programs normally in your user account's proper login session.

Work-around (dangerous?): you can completely shut down Fx, then copy the .mozilla folder in your user account home folder to /root. But that still won't put the menu bar at the top... for that, (never tried this myself, so no guarantees) try invoking nautilus/Fx through gksu?

[earther]

You should never run a GUI as root. Dangerous as you discovered.

[Grumpus]

@barbaz - one of the things left out of Ubuntu14.04 was gksudo initially, you had to go into the repositories and install it.
There is still a lag on terminal control and a lot of the detailed fixes missing, little tweaks you used to have.
In earlier versions I only set up root programs frequently used and did most as super user, lazy on my part.

@earther
To steal a famous line: "You're not computing if you don't crash once in a while."


P.S: an added complication the openH264 codec shows in plugins as "will be installed shortly."
Checking for the update from the "more' link changes the status to installed, was probably there to begin with, just a guess.

[mightyglydd]

P.S: an added complication the openH264 codec shows in plugins as "will be installed shortly."
Checking for the update from the "more' link changes the status to installed, was probably there to begin with, just a guess.

More here.....looks like you gave it the required 'nudge' .. viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2865689

[Grumpus]

When 33 updated in the repository it was functional, all others were automatically set to always ask.
It was after the inadvertent changing to default Firefox it went "soon to be installed."

What I am having trouble understanding is earlier versions of Ubuntu never had this change between the root packages and the user level packages.
Seems like there was more of a separation of the two as I remember doing this in earlier versions.

[Grumpus]

CAUTION
Opened Synaptic and noticed a number of gle and mesa packages to update along with xatracker and calculator.
If trying to update the entire list as a group a notice of removal of a great number of packages which are important to system operations would be removed.
Certain files, if installed first, change the dependency issue and allow the install of the updates without the apparent dependency removal.
Be careful and when trying to install make sure you pick packages which do not want to remove anything first.
There is probably a dependency issue on a newer package with one of the newer installs which, if it is not installed first, will cause the removal notice.