Xfce Forum

m3n3chm0

Member

Registered: 2014-08-25

Posts: 10

PolicyKit Authentication Agent - Gnome ? ¬¬

Hello guys,

Today I've realized that I got this line in Session & start up apps.

I do not know why it's installed since I do not have Gnome installed on my laptop.

      /usr/lib/policykit-1-gnome/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1

Can I just remove it ?

Regards ¡¡

sixsixfive

Member

From: behind you

Registered: 2012-04-08

Posts: 579

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Re: PolicyKit Authentication Agent - Gnome ? ¬¬

>I do not know why it's installed since I do not have Gnome installed on my laptop.

because xfce does not have a lightweight polkit client altenative so you either need gnome polkit or another one like mate-polkit to have policykit support

>Can I just remove it ?

sure - however you will loose some comfort because many features depend on it(session manager needs it to reboot your pc , thunar needs to mount your hdds, package mangers needs it to ask for permissions etc.)

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m3n3chm0

Member

Registered: 2014-08-25

Posts: 10

Re: PolicyKit Authentication Agent - Gnome ? ¬¬

Ok Sixsixfive,

appreciate your nice explanation. So I'll keep it installed for sure.

thank you so much.

Clio

Member

Registered: 2011-01-25

Posts: 102

Re: PolicyKit Authentication Agent - Gnome ? ¬¬

Xfce need only the package policykit-1.  The package policykit-1-gnome  is unnecessary and you can it purged.

sixsixfive

Member

From: behind you

Registered: 2012-04-08

Posts: 579

Website

Re: PolicyKit Authentication Agent - Gnome ? ¬¬

Xfce need only the package policykit-1.  The package policykit-1-gnome  is unnecessary and you can it purged.

sorry but you are wrong policykit-1-gnome includes the gtk dialogs so if you remove it polkit is unable to ask for your root, ssh etc. password

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Clio

Member

Registered: 2011-01-25

Posts: 102

Re: PolicyKit Authentication Agent - Gnome ? ¬¬

sorry too, but my Debian Sid Xfce not need policykit-1-gnome, it works fine with policykit-1.

sixsixfive

Member

From: behind you

Registered: 2012-04-08

Posts: 579

Website

Re: PolicyKit Authentication Agent - Gnome ? ¬¬

it works fine with policykit-1.

As I said its possible to remove the whole polkit(for example I dont use it - too) but you will lose some features if you don't use a replacement.

Other distributions also have some clever workarounds like gksu wrappers etc.

but since you removed the gtk frontend of polkit you shouldnt be able to run a gtk app with polkit eg:

pkexec --user root /usr/bin/thunar

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Alpharoot

Member

Registered: 2020-05-05

Posts: 1

Re: PolicyKit Authentication Agent - Gnome ? ¬¬

I needed that while installing xfce over ubuntu 20.04 .

CwF

Member

Registered: 2018-01-28

Posts: 305

Re: PolicyKit Authentication Agent - Gnome ? ¬¬

My Debian is fine also with just libpolkit-agent-1-0, with helpers libpolkit-gobject-1-0 and libpolkit-backend-1-0. pkexec works fine with everything and it doesn't need to call out "--user root", just pkexec thunar...synaptic, mousepad, etc.