[lug] thunderbird doesn't honor default KDE browser

[Davide Del Vento]

On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 13:33, Simos <blug at chinesetearoom.com> wrote:
> On Thursday 15 December 2011 1:19 Davide Del Vento wrote:
>> >> I have KDE (I finally gave up on GNOME, but that's a different story)
>> >> Platform Version 4.7.2 (4.7.2) and my default browser is firefox
>> >> (firefox says so, and SystemSettings->DefaultApplications->WebBrowser
>> >> confirms). When I click on a link in the console, it opens firefox.
>> >> When I click on a link in Thunderbird (v8.0) it opens Chrome.
>> >> Thunderbird doesn't have any browser "choice" and it should honor
>> >> system default, do you have any clue of what could be wrong here?
>> > Assuming you are running some sort of Debian variant (e.g. Ubuntu), then
>> > run the following commands in a terminal:
>> >
>> > update-alternatives --list x-www-browser
>> > update-alternatives --list gnome-www-browser
>> >
>> > I'm betting one of them will come back with Chrome on top of the list.
>>
>> Thanks, but nope:
>>
>> ddvento at cisl-augusta:~$ update-alternatives --list x-www-browser
>> /usr/bin/firefox
>> /usr/bin/google-chrome
>> /usr/bin/rekonq
>> ddvento at cisl-augusta:~$ update-alternatives --list gnome-www-browser
>> /usr/bin/firefox
>> /usr/bin/google-chrome
>
> Well, shoot...
>
> The only other thing I can think of to check:
>
> ls -al /etc/alternatives | grep -i chrome

Kind of bingo, but really not :-(

ddvento at cisl-augusta:~$ ls -al /etc/alternatives | grep -i chrome
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root    22 2011-11-29 11:39 gnome-www-browser ->
/usr/bin/google-chrome
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root    22 2011-11-29 11:39 x-www-browser ->
/usr/bin/google-chrome

(sudoing to replace them with firefox)

ddvento at cisl-augusta:~$ ls -al /etc/alternatives | grep -i fox
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root    58 2011-11-29 09:57 firefox-flashplugin ->
/var/lib/flashplugin-installer/npwrapper.libflashplayer.so
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root    16 2011-12-15 13:46 gnome-www-browser ->
/usr/bin/firefox
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root    16 2011-12-15 13:46 x-www-browser ->
/usr/bin/firefox
ddvento at cisl-augusta:~$ ls -al /etc/alternatives | grep -i chrome
ddvento at cisl-augusta:~$

But still Thunderbird uses chrome.

> Also, in Gnome 2 (not sure about Gnome 3) there was a Preferred Applications
> settings dialog in gnome-control-panel that allowed you to pick a web browser
> for Gnome apps (even if you were running KDE). Not sure if it's still there in
> Gnome 3.

I don't have anything gnome-related installed. Gnome-(TAB) only brings:

ddvento at cisl-augusta:~$ gnome-
gnome-help         gnome-open         gnome-www-browser
ddvento at cisl-augusta:~$ gnome-help
Segmentation fault
ddvento at cisl-augusta:~$ ls -l `which gnome-www-browser`
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 35 2011-11-29 11:39 /usr/bin/gnome-www-browser
-> /etc/alternatives/gnome-www-browser
ddvento at cisl-augusta:~$ ls -l /etc/alternatives/gnome-www-browser
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 16 2011-12-15 13:46
/etc/alternatives/gnome-www-browser -> /usr/bin/firefox
ddvento at cisl-augusta:~$ gnome-open
Usage: gnome-open <url>
ddvento at cisl-augusta:~$ gnome-open www.google.com
Error showing url: Error stating file '/home/ddvento/www.google.com':
No such file or directory
ddvento at cisl-augusta:~$ gnome-open http://www.google.com
ddvento at cisl-augusta:~$ Created new window in existing browser session.

Grrr Chrome opens. Why on the heck gnome-crap is installed in a
pure-kde environment?

ddvento at cisl-augusta:~$ dpkg --search /usr/bin/gnome-open
libgnome2-0: /usr/bin/gnome-open
ddvento at cisl-augusta:~$ sudo apt-get remove libgnome2-0
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  libbonoboui2-0 libgnome2-0 libgnomeui-0 python-gnome2
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 4 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 3,363 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
(Reading database ... 169330 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing python-gnome2 ...
Removing libgnomeui-0 ...
Removing libbonoboui2-0 ...
Removing libgnome2-0 ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin ...
ldconfig deferred processing now taking place
Processing triggers for man-db ...
ddvento at cisl-augusta:~$
ddvento at cisl-augusta:~$ gnome-open
bash: /usr/bin/gnome-open: No such file or directory
ddvento at cisl-augusta:~$

Cool :-)

But still Thunderbird uses chrome (even after a restart).

It looks like I'm not alone, see
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+question/179009
and especially http://hsmak.wordpress.com/2009/09/03/howto-force-thunderbird-to-open-links-in-firefox/
(with the long list of comments).
None of their suggestions work, including

sudo update-alternatives –config x-www-browser

And yes, I've manually tried what Eddie suggests, namely to put that
stuff in the user.js file (the gui-based way described above, put them
in prefs.js).

No way - it does not work, this stubborn Thunderbird opens links in chrome.

<rant>
It is really really annoying and frustrating for somebody used to have
linux working fine on laptops since the late 90s to see these "just
works (tm)" desktop environments and/or distributions breaking
everything once again - GRRRRRRR
</rant>

Thanks
Davide