Bug#293214: gksudo: multiple gksudo's at the same time isn't nice

[Sebastien Bacher]

Package: gksu
Severity: normal

This bug has been opened here: https://bugzilla.ubuntu.com/5913

"When opening multiple gksudo's so fast that the first one doesn't block
X before the others are launched, they form an invisible stack. Often
this gives no big problems, but sometimes it does, which makes things
look very much like a lockup (although it looks like hitting ESC always
helps, and one can switch to tty1 to kill gksudo). 

I propose two things:

1) Make it impossible to run multiple gksudo's at the same time
2) When gksudo is started, repaint the desktop in grayscale, and display
gksudo
in color. 


Point 1 is because it is possible (by doing weird things like running
`gksudo ls & gksudo ls & gksudo ls & gksudo ls`, but also by clicking on
the new update notifier applet quickly) to make a lot of gksudo's run,
and when cancelling them things get messy with repainting, looking like
a lockup. The locking X is a bit delayed, so maybe gksudo can assert
it's the only one running, or quit.
Point 2 is to make the user more aware of the fact that gksudo locked X.
At first I was confused when my apps didn't respond, although I quickly
got the point. Not everybody will, and graying things out will make it
very clear. (Fading is too much, I thing, what I've seen in the
gnome-logout thing is Far Too Slow)

I hope to hear some feedback.
..
Because the window manager is ignored (Window menu and close buttons
can't be used), it might also be nice to drop the borders, like the
gnome-logout does. It makes things look much more like "You are doing
something with the OS (switching user), not just looking at a dialog
window".

By the way, I wonder: Why does gksu lock X at all? Does it prevent
malware, running with the priviledges of the active user, from reading
the keystrokes?
Could the looks of gksu, including the locking of X, be mimicked?"


That's also a Debian issue and since the BTS seems to be the upstream
bug system, I'm forwarding here :)


Cheers,
Sebastien Bacher