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.

  • @bloodfart
    0•22 days ago

    From this and your other thread I’m getting the idea that you should switch desktop environments. Gnome doesn’t provide that functionality in the context menu by default and tends to obfuscate program names in order to be more straightforward.

    Install kde. See how it treats you. It’s a lot more windowsy than gnome.

    Usually when gnome users run into something they can’t do with the gui they’ll either go without it or use the command line to do it. That’s the way macos users are too.

    If you don’t wanna use the command line you gotta have a de that doesn’t treat it as an acceptable fallback.

    I’m just gonna respond to your other thread here as well. The problem you ought to be trying to solve isn’t running a gui program sudo (which is a bad idea for all the reasons everyone else in that thread listed), but why you’re not being prompted for credentials when you try to do something that needs them.

    One of the examples you gave is a network share file access and it could be (I’m guessing because decades ago I did this too) that you have admin credentials on your local machine that match the ones your network share is looking for. If that’s the case, it’s bad, fix it.

    • JediwanOP
      0•22 days ago

      It’s a lot more windowsy than gnome.

      Is it as easily customizable now? The thing I hate about Windows and love about GNOME is that I can configure the UI to look like almost anything with a few clicks and there is a great community creating great extensions. I haven’t tried KDE in many years but I found it more limiting than even Windows last time I tried it.

      • @bloodfart
        1•22 days ago

        I don’t know what you want to customize, but it seemed really customizable to me.

        So you understand who you’re talking to: I use lxqt and the only customized thing about it is taskbar on the left side of the screen.