How to install an application that requires gksu package on ubuntu 18.04?

Introduction

As Jeremy Bicha wrote:

Posted on April 18, 2018 by Jeremy Bicha — 8 Comments

Today, gksu was removed from Ubuntu 18.04, four weeks after it was removed from Debian.

So theoretically speaking there are no packages on Bionic Beaver 18.04 LTS, depending on gksu. But this is not true:

$ apt-cache rdepends gksu
gksu
Reverse Depends:
  gexec
  wicd-gtk
  spacefm-gtk3
  spacefm
 |menu

$ aptitude why gksu 
i   menu Suggests gksu | kde-runtime | ktsuss

As you see some software, which are distibuted by third-party may depend on gksu package. So you can proceed installing gksu with method below on your own risk.

How to fix?

Possible solution is to install version from previous (17.10, artful) release.

Warning: do not execute the commands below if unsure!

Short method (as @MK suggested)

wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/libg/libgtop2/libgtop-2.0-10_2.32.0-1_amd64.deb
sudo apt install ./libgtop-2.0-10_2.32.0-1_amd64.deb

wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/libg/libgksu/libgksu2-0_2.0.13~pre1-6ubuntu8_amd64.deb
sudo apt install ./libgksu2-0_2.0.13~pre1-6ubuntu8_amd64.deb

wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/g/gksu/gksu_2.0.2-9ubuntu1_amd64.deb
sudo apt install ./gksu_2.0.2-9ubuntu1_amd64.deb

Test

Test gksu (should work on Xorg-sessions)

gksu-properties # check that it has "Authentication mode" to "sudo"
gksu date
gksudo date

Notes

After installation the following packages will be marked as obsolete (locally-installed): gksu, libgksu2-0. But they will work as expected.

Mixed repositories

Adding the artful repositories to a bionic system is an absolutely horrible idea. I cannot stress enough how much suffering the notion, alone, of running with mixed repositories will bring. There shall be misery and gnashing of teeth to the end of the age and beyond.

Masochists, please at least use protection (Apt Pinning).

Better ideas

• Wait for new releases that do not depend on outdated packages. (Patience is a virtue that will prevent embarrassing visits to the Help Center with conf-files, or worse, stuck where they don't belong.)

• Rebuild packages without unnecessary dependencies.

• Find PPAs with the packages you want.

• Put a wrapper -script- around pkexec.

• Faux play -with faux packages- and equivs.

Notes

• kdesudo has been dropped as well.

• lxqt-sudo is still around, but didn't work for me.

• Something called gosa? No idea what it is.

• Might as well play sudoku until this mess is figured out.