On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 01:44:14PM +0200, Helmut Jarausch wrote:
> Thanks, I'll try that - though I have not much time to do so, since the
> machine starts swapping (though it has 8Gb memory).
>
> Furtheron I've found out, that sci-mathematics/dataplot
> had BROWSER=xdg-open in it's /etc/env.d/90dataplot file.
> Thus it went into /etc/profile.env.
>
> I think it's very strange that a package may modify
> such a vital environment variable as 'BROWSER'.
That is just setting the default. If you have any preferences set in
your user's environment, it shouldn't be affected.
> Is this a bug in sci-mathematics/dataplot ?
>
Not really. See `man xdg-open` for what this program does. (It is part
of x11-misc/xdg-utils, you may also want to look at the man page for
xdg-settings). The programs are *supposed* to provide
cross-platform/cross-desktop/cross-toolkit interoperability. Basically
trying to save you the problem from being either locked-down to your
current desktop environment's way of configuring "which program is
used to open which type of documents" and the problem of having to go
into every single program to change the "preferred browser" in their
settings when you decide that, say, you no longer want to use Firefox
and now prefers Opera.
In terms of a default it is a fairly sensible one, and works okay with
full-blown desktop environments. (Does anyone know if it works with
enlightenment?) So on my work compute with Gnome it is great. But on
my home computer with Fvwm, not so much.
W
--
Willie W. Wong ww...@math.princeton.edu
Data aequatione quotcunque fluentes quantitae involvente fluxiones invenire
et vice versa ~~~ I. Newton
