[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Bug#348775: general: terminal emulators' alternatives settings' priorities annoy users



Hi,

Simon Richter wrote:

> The problem at hand is the proposed (and implemented) solution for
> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=332223 .
[lxterm having higher priority than konsole on KDE systems]
>
> I'm unconvinced that bumping the priority on the other terminal
> emulators is an adequate solution, hence I'm opening this "general" bug
> for discussion on how to reflect individual users' choices properly.
>
> It has been suggested on #debian-devel that maybe creating a per-user
> ~/bin with its own alternatives links might be an option, however there
> needs to be a fallback mechanism in case the currently selected option
> goes away.

To make this concrete:

. unlike browsers with $BROWSER and desktop-specific settings, there
  is no standard, cross-distro way to make a user-specific choice of
  terminal

. apps integrated into Debian can and should be using
  x-terminal-emulator, without an explicit "/usr/bin/", as hinted at
  by policy §6.1 "Introduction to package maintainer scripts"

. therefore users can put a script implementing whatever policy they
  choose in ~/bin/x-terminal-emulator, but:

   1. that requires more know-how than many users have
   2. applications not integrated into Debian would just use xterm
      anyway, which is not so great.

To solve (1): an interested person could make an app that installs an
easily configurable ~/bin/x-terminal-emulator script.  This seems
like a rfp rather than a general bug, if anything.

To solve (2): one could introduce a TERMINAL environment variable
analogous to MAILER and implement xdg-terminal that reads it.  Please
clone this bug and assign to xdg-utils if interested.

Sensible?
Jonathan



Reply to: