I have had a similar if not same problem for a long while now. I know I can get around this by running things from terminal as su to root. But now that I found this I thought I should join in with info.
So whenever I run synaptic from gnome it takes 15 seconds and crashes the desktop. Whenever I run a program with admin unlock and press unlock it crashes. Here are a few log files. Hope we can find the culprit here and fix this. dmesg : [ 22.470494] nvidia 0000:01:00.0: irq 89 for MSI/MSI-X [ 23.103680] NVRM: Your system is not currently configured to drive a VGA console [ 23.103689] NVRM: on the primary VGA device. The NVIDIA Linux graphics driver [ 23.103691] NVRM: requires the use of a text-mode VGA console. Use of other console [ 23.103693] NVRM: drivers including, but not limited to, vesafb, may result in [ 23.103694] NVRM: corruption and stability problems, and is not supported. [ 3498.164413] gnome-shell[2688]: segfault at 7fffcdd1aff8 ip 00007f057c289812 sp 00007fffcdd1b000 error 6 in libc-2.18.so[7f057c210000+1a0000] ### auth.log ### Mar 30 18:17:01 BirdFarm0 CRON[4451]: PAM unable to dlopen(pam_ldap.so): /lib/security/pam_ldap.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Mar 30 18:17:01 BirdFarm0 CRON[4451]: PAM adding faulty module: pam_ldap.so Mar 30 18:17:01 BirdFarm0 CRON[4451]: pam_unix(cron:session): session opened for user root by (uid=0) Mar 30 18:17:01 BirdFarm0 CRON[4451]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user root Mar 30 18:19:14 BirdFarm0 polkitd(authority=local): Unregistered Authentication Agent for unix-session:/org/freedesktop/ConsoleKit/Session2 (system bus name :1.50, object path /org/freedesktop/PolicyKit1/AuthenticationAgent, locale en_US.utf8) (disconnected from bus) Mar 30 18:19:14 BirdFarm0 polkitd(authority=local): Operator of unix-session:/org/freedesktop/ConsoleKit/Session2 FAILED to authenticate to gain authorization for action org.gnome.controlcenter.datetime.configure for unix-process:4476:347791 [gnome-control-center datetime] (owned by unix-user:miqu) Mar 30 18:19:15 BirdFarm0 dbus[1136]: [system] Rejected send message, 2 matched rules; type="method_call", sender=":1.82" (uid=1000 pid=5392 comm="/usr/bin/gnome-shell ") interface="org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties" member="GetAll" error name="(unset)" requested_reply="0" destination=":1.16" (uid=0 pid=2030 comm="/usr/sbin/console-kit-daemon --no-daemon ") Mar 30 18:19:15 BirdFarm0 polkitd(authority=local): Registered Authentication Agent for unix-session:/org/freedesktop/ConsoleKit/Session2 (system bus name :1.82 [/usr/bin/gnome-shell], object path /org/freedesktop/PolicyKit1/AuthenticationAgent, locale en_US.utf8) Mar 30 18:19:26 BirdFarm0 su[5556]: PAM unable to dlopen(pam_ldap.so): /lib/security/pam_ldap.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Mar 30 18:19:26 BirdFarm0 su[5556]: PAM adding faulty module: pam_ldap.so Mar 30 18:19:30 BirdFarm0 su[5556]: Successful su for root by miqu Mar 30 18:19:30 BirdFarm0 su[5556]: + /dev/pts/0 miqu:root Mar 30 18:19:30 BirdFarm0 su[5556]: pam_unix(su:session): session opened for user root by miqu(uid=1000) /var/log/kern.log Mar 30 18:19:13 BirdFarm0 kernel: [ 3498.164413] gnome-shell[2688]: segfault at 7fffcdd1aff8 ip 00007f057c289812 sp 00007fffcdd1b000 error 6 in libc-2.18.so[7f057c210000+1a0000] Please let me know if more info is needed. Mika