Comment 6 for bug 79110

We're adding this functionality into Linux Mint so I had a look at it and I can confirm that this bug is still present in Hardy. Basically when a folder is open with nautilus-gksu this is what happens:

- A nautilus instance is launched on the selected folder with root permissions.
- Another nautilus instance (which appears behind the first one) is launched on the user's home folder, also with root permissions.

The code for nautilus-gksu is in the package gksu. If I was keen on debugging the C code I'd have a look at pthread_create (&new_thread, NULL, start_gksu_thread, (void*)full_cmd); in libnautilus-gksu.c (gksu version 2.0.0).

I'll implement this as a script instead but here you go anyway if you want to fix this upstream.

Also, in the French translation:
msgid "Open as administrator"
msgstr "Ouvrir en tant administrateur"

should be

msgid "Open as administrator"
msgstr "Ouvrir en tant qu'administrateur"

And finally... it would be nice for nautilus-gksu to use an icon.

Now, I'm going a bit too far as I'm touching on off-topic things here but... this kind of functionality is quite powerful and there's no visual way to distinguish a root nautilus window from a normal one. I couldn't find a way to force nautilus into using a different title. Unless nautilus is able to look different for the user in this particular context I'd suggest to use another file browser. It's ok to edit a particular file or to launch a particular program as root, but having root nautilus instances without any visual hint for the user to remember is quite a risk to the stability of the system :)

Good luck to the devs and sorry for throwing all these ideas into a single comment.