[Bug 1749728] Re: Installing packages fails when launched via Firefox ("open with")

[William Geiger]

I finally got around to tracking down this problem it seems to be a
mimeinfo.cache issue.

If the reader is not familiar mimeinfo is part of the freedesktop and
contains all the mime types and their program associations.

for deb packages the primary mime type (called media types now because
why not <sigh>} is:

application/vnd.debian.binary-package

with 2 depreciated alternates:

application/x-deb
application/x-debian-package

this is documented @ https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-
types/application/vnd.debian.binary-package

the entire mime list is @ http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/

these definitions are combined with default applications and put into
defaults.list file(s). On my system I have several <sigh>. They are
located @:

/etc/g/etc/xfce4/defaults.list
nome/defaults.list
/usr/share/applications/defaults.list
/usr/share/xfce4/applications/defaults.list
/usr/share/xubuntu/applications/defaults.list

now I am not 100% but I believe that the mimeinfo.cache file is created
from the default.list (God only knows which one) and updated every time
a program/package is installed. This is all part of the Freedesktop/xdg
stuff and you can read the docs/specs @ their website.


 On my system I have 2 of these files:

/usr/share/applications/mimeinfo.cache
/home/johndoe/.local/share/applications/mimeinfo.cache

to "fix" the problem with launching gdebi from the Thunar context menu
(right mouse menu) I edited the /usr/share/applications/mimeinfo.cache
file so the only app association with the deb packages was gdebi.desktop
(and of course there are multiple of these on my system <sigh>):

application/vnd.debian.binary-package=gdebi.desktop;
application/x-deb=gdebi.desktop;
application/x-debian-package;

I also modified my in the same manner but it seems that the file in
/usr/share/applications/mimeinfo.cache is the critical one for Thunar,

To get Gdebi to work from the opera downloads via open downloaded .deb
file I had to add the mime associations to
/home/johndoe/.config/mimeapps.list (yea! another MIME file)

Now there is yet another MIME file /usr/share/mime/mime.cache which is a
binary file. It can be updated via the command:

$ sudo update-mime-database /usr/share/mime/

I don't know who or what uses it but I am at the tail end of an all-
nighter hunting down this bug so I updated it.

There is one more file that should be looked at:

/usr/share/application-registry/gdebi.applications

the last line in the file is:

mime_types=application/x-deb

I changed it to:

mime_types=application/x-deb;application/vnd.debian.binary-
package;application/x-debian-package;

not sure if it matters nor if it should be comma separated or semi-colon
separated perhaps the package maintainer can chime in.

I hope this is somewhat helpful. If you are reading this and NOT on an
xubuntu system you file locations may be different. use your favorite
file search utility (I use catfish) and look for "mimeinfo",
"defaults.list", "mime", and "gdebi"

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1749728

Title:
  Installing packages fails when launched via Firefox ("open with")

Status in gdebi package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  When launched from Firefox with the "open with" function, GDebi is
  unable to complete installing the package. The GDebi window does open,
  but after selecting to "install" the package the window closes and the
  package is left uninstalled.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
  Package: gdebi 0.9.5.7+nmu2
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.13.0-32.35-generic 4.13.13
  Uname: Linux 4.13.0-32-generic x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.20.8-0ubuntu10
  Architecture: amd64
  CurrentDesktop: MATE
  Date: Thu Feb 15 17:08:31 2018
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2018-02-15 (0 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-MATE 18.04 LTS "Bionic Beaver" - Alpha amd64 (20180215)
  PackageArchitecture: all
  SourcePackage: gdebi
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

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