This is a partial case of the more general question "Don't bother non-admin users with admin questions":
I have several non-admin users on a computer and I want to disable software updates for all of them. I tried this:
# su wife -c gconftool -s --type bool /apps/update-notifier/auto_launch false
X11 connection rejected because of wrong authentication.
X11 connection rejected because of wrong authentication.
X11 connection rejected because of wrong authentication.
X11 connection rejected because of wrong authentication.
(I am logged on to the computer being administered via ssh
).