Unable to truly set default browser OpenSUSE 12.3, Xfce 4.8

(If this is the wrong are to post this, kindly direct me to correct spot, thank you. This seemed the lest-bad fit.)

I recently installed OpenSUSE 12.3 with Xfce. Overall, it’s been a nice experience as things either Just Work or can be easily made to work, though I’ve run into one irritating exception: I cannot really change the default browser.

I have installed Opera (with OpenSUSE’s software management tools) and used Xfce’s settings tool to make opera-browser the default web browser. Yet, if I open a link from Firestorm (second life client) or the Xfce terminal, it brings up Firefox rather than opening a new page (tab) in Opera. I have also tried using xdg-settings to set the browser, and gconf-editor, as well as setting the BROWSER environment variable. And still Firefox opens instead of Opera.

Everything else has been rather simple, such that I suspect I am overlooking something. Do I need to purge the system of Firefox to get its attention?

Did you check the entries in
~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list

Ah, yes, and here it is:

[Added Associations]
x-scheme-handler/http=exo-web-browser.desktop
x-scheme-handler/https=exo-web-browser.desktop
x-scheme-handler/mailto=exo-mail-reader.desktop

And now I’ve finally found exo-preferred-applications but it shows Opera already selected and yet Firefox still opens.

There should be two sets of entries. One for default and one for added


[Default Applications]
x-scheme-handler/http=exo-web-browser.desktop
x-scheme-handler/https=exo-web-browser.desktop
x-scheme-handler/mailto=exo-mail-reader.desktop

[Added Associations] 
x-scheme-handler/http=exo-web-browser.desktop
x-scheme-handler/https=exo-web-browser.desktop
x-scheme-handler/mailto=exo-mail-reader.desktop

Perhaps there should be two, but there is only the one.
Let’s see what happens if I add the first…

Partial success. A link opened from xfce-terminal now opens a tab in Opera.
Alas, a link opened from Firestorm still brings up Firefox.
I’ve been told Firestorm simply tells the OS/desktop “Here’s a URL to open” but I don’t know the exact mechanism it uses.

What happens when you type the following command in command launcher (Alt+F2) or terminal/konsole

xdg-open http://www.opensuse.org

That does the right thing. I get a new tab in Opera with opensuse.org displayed.
I guess it’s time to figure what out just what exactly Firestorm is really doing.

Some clients may have their own web selector setup. I play Eternal Lands and you set the web client in its config.

DO’H!

It’s not a Firestorm specific internal setting, but a shell script it uses. That script does try to use $BROWSER first… but it needs to be set in .profile (which I hadn’t done during testing - d’oh!) which gave the curious result of the script doing the right thing from the command line, but not from an instance of Firestorm. Once I’d set BROWSER in .profile to be opera (and re-started my session…) it works as I expect it.

Without BROWSER set (as the script saw it…) it would try a few things and finally fall through to a list of browsers, with Firefox leading Opera in the list. Thus it will, in all but the rare case of none of the list of browsers installed, at least launch something.

ADDENDUM: Is there way to mark this thread with [SOLVED] or such?

They don’t do that in these forums

On 07/07/2013 10:26 PM, vazhavandan pecked at the keyboard and wrote:
> Vakkotaur;2570130 Wrote:
>> Is there way to mark this thread with [SOLVED] or such?
> They don’t do that in these forums
>
>
Or use an NNTP reader like Thunderbird then you can add it yourself.