What is the program that runs the executables?

I installed Thunderbird in a folder in my home directory and now if I click to open that program, inside the Dolphin application it opens with the Kwrite program, showing a compiled file.
I tried pointing out a program to open with “Open whit” but I do not know what the program will run the executables
Please, which program do I point to?

Executables run without any assistance.

Perhaps your executable does not have executable permissions?

To make a binary or script executable, run the following with elevated permissions…

# chmod +x *filename *

If you still have problems,
You need to post details about your file and where it came from.

If you are trying to launch Thunderbird, is there some reason you didn’t install from the openSUSE repos?
You might remove the Thunderbird you install, then open
YaST > Software Manager
do a search for Thunderbird and install it.

TSU

If I open a terminal, in the folder that exists thunderbird program and type thunderbird, everything runs normally.
But if I open this folder with Dolphin and double-click on the program thunderbird it is opened with kwrite.
So I have to tell Dolphin that he should not use kwrite to open this program and I should indicate the right.
But which one should I indicate?

I don’t actually use KDE, but FWIW, I think I had seen something similar with Nautilus on GNOME.

In this case the detail was Nautilus being configured by default to “open” binaries/scripts; the other options being “run” and “ask what to do”. This setting applied regardless of file permissions (of course if telling it to run them while not having execute permissions I got an error).

Doesn’t Dolphin have a similar setting?

And just as comment, if program was installed “manually” in a custom Home directory, it should normally be enough to run chmod as normal user, without needing elevated permissions.

EDIT: isn’t the “right program” typically Bash itself?

I do not know. Having an executable/runable file that has no execute permissions for the Dolphin/Nautilus user, I think it is rather useless to offer a “run” option in the “right click” menu (or run it by default when clicking left).
And when no permission is granted, it is not easy to decide if something is an executable/runable file at all. Files are just bunches of bytes. When you have no idea what the bytes mean, how to tell what it is?

When the user owns the file and it is in a place he also ows (which is the case in his own home directory), he can of course set permissions.
IMHO it is quicker to test that then to ask. :wink:

BTW, each user has a ~/bin. That is a very good place to put programs in, the more because it is “by default” in the user’s PATH and thus the user has only to use

program

to execute it.

I do not know what you mean with the “right program”, but when a program is a bash script, it will be “executed” (in fact interpreted) by bash (which itself will be executed). Same for other scripting language programs (other shells like csh, ksh and python, etc.) but when everyting is done correctly, the “shebang” is in the script file and that tells the kernel which interpreter to use. E.g.

#!/bin/bash
# this script is to be interpreted by Bash
echo "Hello world"

as far as I can tell you’re opening the *.desktop files those are text files that launch programs they can be opened by kate or any text editor but clicking on them in dolphin should run the application defined in said desktop file
I’d say you played with the file extensions in kde settings and messed some things up, I’d suggest removing the mimeapps.list which should restore all to the system defaults

rm ~/.config/mimeapps.list
rm ~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list
rm ~/.local/share/mime/mime.cache

Been thinking about what you described.

If you feel you described your situation exactly as I read it… Then it might be a bug. But before you report a bug you should try to see if you can replicate the result with a different binary.

  1. Open a console
  2. browse to the binary you want to execute.
  3. Execute the binary (results in success)
    Repeat but in a File Manager like Dolphin instead of a command line window…
  4. Open Dolphin
  5. Browse to the binary exactly the same as how you did this by command line.
  6. Execute the binary by double-clicking or clicking (Depends on your GUI setting)

The point is that it should not matter whether by command line of File Manager… The file should be identified as an executable by the “execute bit” in the file’s permissions. I don’t know that you can accidentally mis-configure a File Manager to identify an executable file as non-executable and associated with a viewer app.

TSU

That is because the file named Thunderbird is a link to a shell script. A shellscript is not an executable. The default in Plasma for shell scripts is found in file associations, it is open them with a code editor, Kwrite for you, for me Kate. However, to my surprise I found that shellscripts are treated special. After double click Dolphin asks if I want to edit the script (opens editor) or execute. It doesn’t do that for you?

the OP wasn’t exactly clear how and where he started programs as a lot (not all) of files in /usr/bin are shell scripts that point to programs and others are binary programs
but if the OP went to /usr/share/applications (where desktop files are kept) he’d see the desktop launchers as programs but they’re text files
anyhow if kedit has been registered as the default handler of binary files or *.desktop files the fix should be in ~/.config/mimeapps.list unless the OP edited the system mimeapps.list

In which folder do you start Thunderbird?
What I think what is going on is this:
When typing thunderbird in a terminal, regardless in which folder you do that, the system will look in the PATH to find a file called thunderbird which it can start. This can be in a completely different folder than the one you are in right now. When the installation is correct, Thunderbird (the executable) will be in a folder which is in the PATH.
When you click the thunderbird file in the folder you have opened in the file-manager the system wants to start that file. When it’s not an executable this won’t work.

So again: in which folder do you think Thunderbird’s executable is located? Just to see if you do start the correct one in the file-manager, which is a strange place to start it. After installation Thunderbird should have an entry in the menu from where it can be started.

Normally we install things in the system not a home directory. Configurations and data will be stored in ones home but the program is someplace in root.

It is possible to install direct to your home but but often you need special setup to make it work for some programs.

So the real question is exactly how you installed to your home and where did you get the program files you installed.

You can get TB from the repos and install it normally and it should work fine. Getting it from someplace else and installing in a none standard location like home would require a deep understanding of the program structure.

I must have missed this being a local Thunderbird install issue
if I’m not mistaken to run tb you need to execute a bash script when clicking on a bash script dolphin offers you a choice weather to execute the program or open the script file in a text editor you can select the execute option
if you want to use the latest Thunderbird 60 you can get it from the mozilla repo but it should make it’s way in to the update repo

zypper ar -f http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/mozilla/openSUSE_Leap_15.0/mozilla.repo
zypper in MozillaThunderbird-60.0

by doing this you’ll get the latest TBird installed system vide and you’ll receive updates via the update applet or zypper

It’s a little hard to explain.
This morning the ThunderBird works from any link at any point on this machine. No changes have been made to the settings of this machine since the beginning of this post
Thank you all