Description of problem: Running palimpsest as root provides very limited functions - not possible to: delete, edit, mount, unmount volumes. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): DeviceKit-disks-003-6.fc11 gnome-disk-utility-02-2.fc11 PolicyKit-0.9-6.fc11 - no changes in setup Reproducible: always Steps to Reproduce: 1. su - 2. palimpsest & 3. click on different disks/volumes in left menu 4. run as common X user: palimpsest & 5. compare the active options provided by palimpsest Actual results: root usage has much less option then running as user Expected results: root has same (or) more functions available
Same comment as for nautilus: This is caused by su not propagating the session bus. But palimpsest is not meant to be used in this way anyway; it uses PolicyKit to ask for privileges if needed.
Matthias is right, simply don't runt palimpsest (or for that matter any desktop programs) as uid 0. See e.g. http://www.gtk.org/setuid.html and many other places why running desktop apps as uid 0 is a horrible idea. Also note that with the move to the new PolicyKit version in F12 by default root will be all powerful PolicyKit-wise. In the mean time, you can manually grant the root user the needed authorizations.
*** Bug 490873 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***