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SOLVED: Use Firefox Beta on MinimalGUI; type "desktop"

Started by pccobbler, December 17, 2020, 11:43:05 PM

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pccobbler

I had a spare fast USB flash drive, so I built a MinimalGUI Stable system on it. I will install all browsers and media players, and lots of other things. This is a system to learn from. I wanted to use Firefox Beta instead of Firefox ESR from Synaptic. I downloaded and extracted it. However, the executable is simply "firefox," while the ones in /usr/share/applications are of type "desktop." I have the sneaky suspicion that Synaptic creates a file of type "desktop" which Openbox understands to be an executable with an associated icon. I catted a "desktop" file and saw that it contains lots of unprintable characters, in other words, it's a real minefield. Sure, I can double-click on "firefox" in the Downloads/firefox directory, but how does one create a file of type "desktop" that Openbox will recognize? Looking at Openbox wikis does not provide a clear answer.

bin

What should work is to create a file Firefox.desktop in your /home/your-user-name/.local/share/applications

Use the text editor supplied in your installation.

You'll need to provide the correct value for your-use-name obviously.

That should then result in an entry in the Programs menu.

Don't use Openbox on its own so I cannot be 100% sure but that's the general method.

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=Internet
GenericName=Web Browser
Keywords=Internet;WWW;Browser;Web;Explorer
Exec=/home/your-user-name/Downloads/firefox-folder-name/firefox %u
Terminal=false
X-MultipleArgs=false
Type=Application
Icon=firefox-esr
Categories=GNOME;GTK;Network;WebBrowser;
MimeType=text/html;text/xml;application/xhtml+xml;application/xml;application/rss+xml;application/rdf+xml;image/gif;image/jpeg;image/png;x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https;x-scheme-handler/ftp;x-scheme-handler/chrome;video/webm;application/x-xpinstall;
StartupNotify=true
Actions=new-window;new-private-window;
Path=

[Desktop Action new-window]
##Name=Open a New Window
##Exec=firefox-esr -new-window

[Desktop Action new-private-window]
##Name=Open a New Private Window
##Exec=firefox-esr -private-window

pccobbler

#2
@bin Thanks for the reply.

Before I saw your post, I surfed around and found a website that listed a slightly smaller version of what you posted:


[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Exec=/home/pccobbler/Downloads/firefox/firefox
Name=Firefox Beta
GenericName=Web Browser
Icon=palemoon


I added GenericName after looking at one of the desktop files. I added the file to /usr/share/applications because I am the only user of this system. I could not find where the icons are stored, so I used "palemoon" which I installed previously. Woohoo; it works!

I don't suppose you know where the icons for applications are stored. I surfed around in /usr/share, but nothing seems right. Some icons are stored in /usr/share/pixmaps, but not Firefox (I have another Sparky Linux Openbox system to peruse).

UPDATE: Okay, I found the Firefox icons in /usr/share/firefox-esr/browser/chrome/icons/default. Chrome?

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