[Novalug] default web browser

[Nino Pereira]

Russell:

thank you for the tip, the directory
/etc/alternatives is indeed where the solution of
my problem is found.

The directory consists of (light-blue, in my system) symbolic
links only, with one exception: README. This file says basically
RTFM for update-alternatives.

'man update-alternatives' educates me about a program I didn't
knew existed. Briefly, 'update-alternatives' is a way of keeping
generic programs that are called located in one single directory,
even though the programs themselves may change over time.
Hence the symbolic links.

It doesn't say which programs are which, but squinting to see
the light-blue letters on white background, you see things you
recognize, such as 'vi' (which is the example used in the man
page), and 'www-browser'. This must be it, I think.
You can find which browser the link points to with the command

sudo update-alternatives --display www-browser

this gives a lot of stuff, including
Current `best' version is /usr/bin/lynx.

So, this is not it. A little further is another
possibility, x-www-browser. With

sudo update-alternatives --display x-www-browser

I find:

  link currently points to /usr/bin/dillo

So, this must be it. Following the man page on how to
change things, I do

  sudo update-alternatives --config x-www-browser

I get a little screen, with three choices
(dillo, iceape, and iceweasel). I pick the one I want, #3,
and to return to the standard behavior I do

sudo update-alternatives --auto x-www-browser.

So far so good. But, when I then test it out, it doesn't
work: when I click on a link in an email I still get dillo,
not iceweasel. Getting in and out of the email client
doesn't help.

So, I've learned a lot, and I should be much closer to
the solution of the problem.

Thanks for your help.

Nino





Russell Evans wrote:
> On Fri, 01 Jun 2007 18:55:26 -0400
> Nino Pereira <pereira at speakeasy.net> wrote:
> 
>> Hi All,
>>
>> some emails have clickable web sites embedded. When I click
>> on those a browser tries to find the site. After an upgrade
>> from debian sarge to edgy the browser that does this is 'dillo'.
>> But, I want it to be firefox (or rather, debian's iceweasel).
>>
>> Which file has the default browser specification? I use
>> thunderbird (or rather, debian's icedove).
>>
> 
> Not having a Debian system to check but is this set via /etc/alternatives?
> 
> Thank you
> Russell 
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