After installing KDE on regular Ubuntu using "apt-get install kubuntu-desktop", I am not able to change any of the system settings requiring administrative privileges due to the lack of the installation of "polkit-kde-1". It will fail with an error as described here below with Muon when I expected to be shown a dialogue to enter my password.
Also other KDE software is affected. For example, when applying changes in Muon package manager, I get the error "This operation cannot continue since proper authorisation was not provided". Installing polkit-kde-1 solves this issue and a proper dialogue is opened to ask for the (sudo) password.
Steps to reproduce (example):
- Install regular Ubuntu
- Install "kubuntu-desktop" using apt-get
- During installation choose KDM as default login manager
- Log in in the KDE desktop
- Open (for example) System settings -> Login Screen. change Appearance, click the "Apply" button.
Expected result: An authorization dialogue shown to enter my password, after which the changed would be applied.
Actual result: Error dialogue: "This operation cannot continue since proper authorisation was not provided". None of the changes were applied.
After manual installation of polkit-kde-1, logging out and logging back in, the result is as expected.
My recommendation is to fix the dependencies/recommends of the KDE suite in Ubuntu in order to overcome this usability issue.
Ubuntu version: Oneiric Ocelot (11.10) fresh install, updated to date on 2011-10-04.
ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: kubuntu-desktop 1.239
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-12.19-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-12-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu2
Architecture: amd64
Date: Tue Oct 4 19:38:05 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Beta amd64 (20110930)
ProcEnviron:
LANGUAGE=en_GB:en_US:en
LANG=nl_NL.utf8
SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: kubuntu-meta
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
The libqapt-runtime package (which handles package installation for Muon including authentication) depends on polkit-kde-1 or policykit-1-gnome, meaning that either package being installed handles the dependency. As long as the polkit-
It seems, though, that the polkit-
The KDE polkit auth agent service also only starts in KDE, too.
At first this would seem to be desirable, as to not have two authentication daemons running at once, but polkit takes care of this. Only one agent can be registered as the authentication agent, so attempting to start the KDE agent after the GNOME agent has started would just cause the KDE agent to quit since it could not register itself with polkit. This means that the OnlyShow=Gnome/KDE entry in the autostart files are unnecessary, and the frontends could be truly interchangeable if this was dropped, fulfilling the current assumptions that the packaging makes.