Doesn't this do the same as kdesu? kdesu might also be a bit safer because it uses only the current display and displays a dialog for the password there.
Not quite, but close. KDEsu (and KDEsudo, which works better if you're in Ubuntu due to the lockdown on the root password, BTW) are graphical launchers of X applications. Some people prefer to work from the command line, even if they're in an X session, so a method of elevating privs that also preserves $DISPLAY and X auth is useful.
Having said that, on my workstation sudo preserves $DISPLAY, and X auth works for me. I don't know why :-) Seems OK over ssh too, so I haven't worried about it too much!
-jim
