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up vote 4 down vote favorite

I've read that it's bad to run gui applications from a terminal using sudo.

In order to administer some eclipse updates, I need elevated privileges (view screenshot). How do I do this correctly?

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Use portable version of eclipse to avoid permission issues – Tachyons Jan 29 at 18:38
I am administering the update as the admin user. The changes I make will affect 2 other user accounts. Is this the same with the portable version? – Frantumn Jan 29 at 18:40
Yes it's bad, and you use gksu – Uri Herrera Jan 29 at 18:51
Thanks @UriHerrera Want to post that as the answer? – Frantumn Jan 29 at 18:54
possible duplicate of Why does Eclipse's "Check for updates" not work – Lekensteyn Jan 29 at 20:22

3 Answers

up vote 5 down vote accepted

To run GUI applications as root you should not be using sudo, but instead use gksu. In this particular case run gksu eclipse, then enter your password.

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up vote 0 down vote

If, like me, you're forced to sudo eclipse because you did it once out of desperation, which changed some config file as root, and permanently rooted you in Sudoland for Eclipse. You can try:

sudo chmod -R a+rwx ~/workspace 
sudo chmod -R a+rwx ~/.eclipse

that got me out of it.

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up vote 0 down vote

Basically the Eclipse update system does not work well when repackaged for various operating system packages. If "apt-get upgrade" does not work for you, then I would suggest you stay away from the packaged version of Eclipse, and simply download the one you need directly from Eclipse, unpack and run it.

Then you can update it as needed.

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