this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2024

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Easily find program name from context menu/without terminal? (lemy.lol)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I occasionally need to know the names of programs. I asked here about "Run as Administrator" being added to the context menu (like in Windows), and the response was basically "can't be easily done". an example is if I wish to edit a config file it cannot be done without accessing the terminal. Knowing the name "gedit" is the real name of "text editor" is useful information in this use-case.

I am not afraid of the terminal, but I would never prefer it over a GUI. is there a way to find a program name/install location from right-clicking-details (or something)? So then I could open a terminal and "sudo programname"?

(As an aside, I prefer Linux overall, but every distro I've tried has a strong sense that if you're using the GUI you don't need or deserve admin controls. Program names in the menus are almost always different from their names in the terminal, and many what I would consider normal system settings, like the ability to act as an administrator, find where a program is installed are terminal only.)

This is Ubuntu with all the default stuff

EDIT: I always expect a degree of hostility and talking-down from the desktop Linux community, but the number of people in this thread telling me I am using my own computer that I bought with my own money in a way they don't prefer while ignoring my question is just absurd and frankly should be deeply embarrassing for all of us. I have strongly defended the desktop Linux community for decades, but this experience has left a sour taste in my mouth.

Thank you to the few of you who tried to assist without judgement or assumptions.

EDIT: As usual, it can be easily done.

(page 2) 10 comments

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Right click on program in menu and choose "edit" or something? Don't know if your particular DE supports that, though.

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I shared a guide on how to do exactly this in your last thread 🤷‍♀️

[–] [email protected] -2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

You shared a guide on creating custom context menu options, which is not useful if I don't know how to find the name of a program in the first place.

[Edited for clarification]

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

You asked “Can you add run as sudo to the context menu”

I showed you a guide which “allows you to modify and customise the context menu”

????

ed.

OP edited their comment entirely, making this response nonsense

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

You can create a new desktop file, where you add pkexec in the Exec line.

Desktop files are in /usr/share/applications. Find your app there. Copy it's desktop file file to the user's application directory, it's ~/.local/share/applications expanded: /home/username/.local/share/applications/. Rename this new desktop file, and in the line starting with Exec add pkexec at the beginning of the command string. pkexec is the graphical equivalent of sudo(kindof). Also change the Name in the file, so you can find it in your menu. (The difference you mention comes from here. On the gui this Name parameter is visible, while on the terminal you call the command from Exec).

When you save the new desktop file, it should show up in your Application menu. If you start this new app, pkexec should bring up a graphical password prompt.

If you use gnome you can edit desktop files with alacarte, it may work with other DEs: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/alacarte

More info, these things are unrelated to your distro, it should work the same way everywhere:

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Use bash-completion, it is much faster than clicking menus.

every distro I’ve tried has a strong sense that if you’re using the GUI you don’t need or deserve admin controls

GUI tools are not suited to be run as root in general. Few ones that are have special measures taken to prevent gaining privileges by another process, e. g. run a background non-GUI process as root and GUI communicating with it as an ordinary user. Such tools (package managers, system tweakers etc.) are usually configured to get required privileges via polkit (e. g. pkexec synaptic to run GUI package manager in Debian). Don't use sudo to run GUI programs!

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Out of interest, what is your use case? I've not seen a gui app that requires root that doesn't prompt for it when you start it up.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (12 children)

It's just useful to know the name of the app sometimes. With ubuntu default options, "Text Editor" (in the GUI menu), is "gedit" for example. "File Browser" is "Nautilus". These things are actually not easy to learn if you aren't deep into the Linux world.

On Windows, I would never need to know that the "File browser window" is called "explorer".

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