Alias 'browse' to xdg-open

Advice from Chad is that we should symlink /usr/bin/browse to sensible-browser in the sensible-utils package.
Looking at that now.

I think sensible-browser is obsolete and I'd like to see it go away. Most things use mimetypes these days but it's the odd thing in the Debian repositories that still uses sensible-browser that's annoying. As far as I know, there is not a GUI way to configure the Debian alternatives that sensible-browser uses.

On my computer:

xdg-open http://www.google.com/ opens Firefox
gvfs-open http://www.google.com/ opens Firefox
sensible-browser http://www.google.com/ opens Epiphany :(

Or why don't we do like Apple and just symlink /usr/bin/open to /usr/bin/xdg-open (since it's installed in Kubuntu too unlike gvfs-open) ?

Then you could recommend

sudo apt install foo; open http://locahost:2022/

and you could also

open ~/Pictures/yakkety-yak.png

etc.

the "kbd" package has a binary called /bin/open - it would not be very awesome to shadow that

xdg-open is probably better though, since it (AFAIK) falls back to sensible-browser if necessary like in a console, but uses more modern methods to select the program otherwise

& I think it would be best if any solution were implemented in Debian as well, to both get wider adoption and help prevent any hiccups if a future package takes over the generic name that is chosen

Guys, the bug is to have the command "browse" DTRT.

It sounds like xdg-open is TRT :) but please don't forget that the point
is to get the command "browse" onto every ubuntu system. xdg-open is a
lovely command for people who have a clue what xdg is. "browse <url>" is
what we want to tell our users to do.

Mark

Attached is a debdiff for xdg-utils (Yakkety) that creates a symlink from /usr/bin/xdg-open to /usr/bin/browse.

Attached is a debdiff for xdg-utils (Xenial) that creates a symlink from /usr/bin/xdg-open to /usr/bin/browse.

Thanks folks :)

I sponsored these.

Martin (or anyone), please format the bug description to be SRU compliant. Forwarding would still be nice, just to do the right thing.

This bug was fixed in the package xdg-utils - 1.1.1-1ubuntu2

---------------
xdg-utils (1.1.1-1ubuntu2) yakkety; urgency=medium

  * debian/xdg-utils.links:
    - Symlink /usr/bin/xdg-open to /usr/bin/browse (LP: #1624022)

 -- Martin Wimpress <email address hidden> Thu, 29 Sep 2016 16:56:07 +0100

Forwarded to Debian yet?

Hello Mark, or anyone else affected,

Accepted xdg-utils into xenial-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xdg-utils/1.1.1-1ubuntu1.16.04.1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

The fix for this bug has been awaiting testing feedback in the -proposed repository for xenial for more than 90 days. Please test this fix and update the bug appropriately with the results. In the event that the fix for this bug is still not verified 15 days from now, the package will be removed from the -proposed repository.

Installed version 1.1.1-1ubuntu1.16.04.1 and tested with "browse <site>". Everything worked as expected.

Thanks all.

$ sudo apt-get install xdg-utils
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  linux-headers-4.4.0-51 linux-headers-4.4.0-51-generic
  linux-image-4.4.0-51-generic linux-image-extra-4.4.0-51-generic
  ubuntu-core-launcher
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be upgraded:
  xdg-utils
1 to upgrade, 0 to newly install, 0 to remove and 189 not to upgrade.
Need to get 59.7 kB of archives.
After this operation, 2,048 B of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-proposed/main amd64 xdg-utils all 1.1.1-1ubuntu1.16.04.1 [59.7 kB]
Fetched 59.7 kB in 0s (975 kB/s)
(Reading database ... 340719 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../xdg-utils_1.1.1-1ubuntu1.16.04.1_all.deb ...
Unpacking xdg-utils (1.1.1-1ubuntu1.16.04.1) over (1.1.1-1ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.5-1) ...
Setting up xdg-utils (1.1.1-1ubuntu1.16.04.1) ...
will@malfunctioning-eddie:~$ browse http://www.google.co.uk
will@malfunctioning-eddie:~$ Created new window in existing browser session.

This bug was fixed in the package xdg-utils - 1.1.1-1ubuntu1.16.04.1

---------------
xdg-utils (1.1.1-1ubuntu1.16.04.1) xenial; urgency=medium

  * debian/xdg-utils.links:
    - Symlink /usr/bin/xdg-open to /usr/bin/browse (LP: #1624022)

 -- Martin Wimpress <email address hidden> Thu, 29 Sep 2016 16:56:07 +0100

The verification of the Stable Release Update for xdg-utils has completed successfully and the package has now been released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.

Has this been forwarded to Debian yet?

It's the last bit of the Ubuntu delta, and if we could push that upstream, we'll have the ability to sync.

Thanks.