I'm unable to launch the gui as root...wondering what I might have done to mess it up.
It will launch from the menu with the warning that I'm not root and let me browse files, but when I try to launch from a terminal as root it gives an error that it can't launch the window. Maybe that's a dumb question, but I haven't been able to find much for info on how to fix this. Any help?

Are you logged in as root or a normal user with "su -" in the terminal?

If you are just a normal user, just open a terminal and try (not sure if that should be an upper case S or not)

I get this -

bash-3.1$ ssh -Y root@<localhost> slackpack
The authenticity of host '<localhost> (127.0.0.1)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is <RSA key fingerprint>.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? y
Please type 'yes' or 'no': yes
Warning: Permanently added '<localhost>' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.
root@<localhost's> password:
Permission denied, please try again.
root@<localhost's> password:

{I entered <control> <c> at this point}
This makes me a bit nervous here - May I ask where this info is going, and to what am I connecting?
My understanding is a bit limited here...

Well you probably are not allowing root logins via /etc/ssh/sshd_config. (PermitRootLogin)

Which is not a bad thing if your machine is directly connected to the Internet.

What that command does is simply log into your own machine via ssh but with Trusted X11Forwarding.. allowing you to run the graphical application as root.

Basically you can't log in as one user, su - to another user and run graphical applications without giving that user permission to access your current X session.

You can either use the "DISPLAY/xhost" route or use ssh (which I find much simpler). There are many topics and howto's explaining this.

If you have kde installed you can try which should prompt you for the root password and open the app.

Thank you Mr. Goblin. Yes that does make sense - I was a bit concerned about security issues, there's a lot about that I don't know yet. I will try those suggestions when I next have an opportunity.

* The "kdesu slackpack" did exactly what I was looking for, thank you much for the info on that!
I had a vague idea of the restrictions on a single user per X-session, but your explanation helped a bunch. I can't say I really had that much idea what I was running into (with that) before now, so I now have some reading to do. Once again, thanx...
I've got some system breaking to do :-)

Greetz
Before I get to my own stuff allow me to make an important point that applies to several posts in this thread and others regarding running graphic applications as root when logged in to KDE as user. It is my understanding that anything other than KDESU is asking for trouble. You can break KDE using "sudo" or "su" (even with loclahost set). KDESU loads specific libraries and $PATH recognition required by KDE. One must use it for graphic apps and that certainly includes Slackpack. Obviously "su" is fine in CLI, even ncurses apps.

For transition let me say to those who like me miss the "full path to all installed files specific to a package" on old v3 KPackage, that even in Slackware-Current from December 10, 2010 the KDE3-Compat package in Extra will allow you to run the old KPackage, albeit without theme or window decorations. I just renamed the executable to KPackage3 so there would be no confusion.

Now the meat re: Slackpack usage. I love the concept and the layout as well as the overall functionality. For me it is a great successor to "Checkinstall" upon which I have depended for many years, since all I really want to use it for is building and installing packages from source. I don't give a h00t about repositories. I may be just missing something obvious but I can't seem to control "configure" through Slackpack, even if I run both "./configure" and "make" first. If I want to pass any extra options at all like "./configure --enable-amd64" or even "PREFIX=/usr" I can't seem to get Slackpack to follow. It very often creates a package that installs all files to "/" instead of to "/usr" even creating new directories like "/include" which afaik is useless.

Please tell me what I am missing. I have not been able to find much in the way of real documentation.

Thank You

Greetings enorbet (as I can understand from your email we've already mailed eachother

Anyway I should inform fellow Slackware users here that I'am working on a way to pass PREFIX options on Create Package command and track installed packages just like the CheckInstall does.