xdg-open does not interact with /etc/alternatives

[Jeffrey Baker]

Binary package hint: xdg-utils

xdg-open has its own private configuration of "preferred applications" which duplicates, and is inconsistent with, /etc/alternatives. As a long-time Debian user I supposed that I could change my web browser by simply changing the target of x-www-browser, but this did not work. I also needed to open the GNOME control panel and change my favorite web browser under the Preferred Applications applet.

The best solution seems to be for the applet to somehow interact with /etc/alternatives, but I don't see how this would be possible since /etc/alternatives is for all users. A partial workaround would be for the default browser to be "x-www-browser" instead of Firefox.

[Jeffrey Baker (jwbaker)]

Architecture: amd64
Dependencies:

DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Package: xdg-utils 1.0.2-6.1
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-9.29-generic
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-9-generic x86_64
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout lpadmin plugdev sambashare

[Nicholas Guriev (mymedia)]

Management of alternatives requires root privileges and, as you mentioned, affects every user of computer. Because of this, I think such a feature will not be implemented in xdg-utils. These programs are intended primarily for interacting with DE, not core system mechanisms.