removing wslview from Ubuntu-only computers?

[Keith]

On 4/4/23 10:51 AM, Little Girl wrote:

[snipped]
> 
>> Either a text-based or lightweight gui web browser would be adequate
>> for viewing html documentation like that found in the gimp-help-en
>> package. If you are using the Firefox snap, you could install the
>> firefox deb which would also solve the problem. You can then remove
>> wslu.
> 
> You and Oliver Grawert keep saying that, but are you both sure? The
> description for the "firefox" package in the "Details" tab of my
> package manager says:

Yes, I'm sure. It's a transitional dummy package. It can be removed or 
left in place. In this case, to avoid the unintended consequence of not 
having a package which provides www-browser installed, it better to have 
it or another suitable package.

[snip]

> A friend of mine believes that gvfs is the package that's needed to
> solve this issue. He poked around in the /usr/share/gimp/2.0/help/en
> subdirectory to see why, when you click "Help" in GIMP, Firefox pops
> up with a can't-find-file error message even though the index.html
> file existed. Then it hit him that because Snaps are sandboxed, the
> Firefox Snap is unable to access that external file.  He messed
> around with wslu and convinced himself that the bad behavior couldn't
> be healed and that other packages provided www-browser to display
> help content.

This was true some time ago, but snap developers created the 
system-packages-doc interface for snaps (particularly web browsers) to 
be able be to access documentation stored in some system directories 
like /usr/share/doc/* or specifically for 
/usr/share/gimp/2.0/help/<locale>/*. The Firefox and Chromium snaps 
support this interface and its enabled by default for both browsers.

[snipped]

Yeah, the gvfs stuff is a red herring.

> So, I'm still left unsure of what to do next. 

[snipped]

Here's what I did.

1. Installed the Lynx text-based web browser. Actually, I always install 
Lynx after I complete a fresh install. I do this in case there's ever a 
problem with the graphical system and I'm forced to use a vt. So I 
already had a web browser in place that provides www-browser. I do not 
have the Firefox transitional deb package installed, but I do have the 
Firefox snap installed.

2. Installed gimp-help-en. Lynx provides www-browser, so apt did not 
pull in wslu or any other package that supplies it.

3. Start gimp, edit preferences to use local installed help files 
instead of online help, and then click the menu help, and then help 
again and then..<drumroll> FIREFOX OPENS THE GIMP HELP INDEX.HTML FILE!

But wait! How did this happen? Lynx is set to www-browser
$ update-alternatives --display www-browser
www-browser - auto mode
    link best version is /usr/bin/lynx
    link currently points to /usr/bin/lynx
    link www-browser is /usr/bin/www-browser
    slave www-browser.1.gz is /usr/share/man/man1/www-browser.1.gz
/usr/bin/lynx - priority 40
    slave www-browser.1.gz: /usr/share/man/man1/lynx.1.gz

Why did the gimp help file open in Firefox instead of Lynx? Well, 
because gimp, like virtually all modern linux gui applications that 
adhere to the freedesktop.org desktop standards, looks to see what the 
default browser is set to in the graphical environment it's running in. 
Gnome, in this case. Gimp only eventually resorts to www-browser if it 
can't find a default browser set by the DE.

[snipped]

-- 
Keith