[Bug 1950550] Re: language support app automatically installs firefox deb package (21.10)

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

Thanks for your report. I can reproduce it on impish.

When trying on jammy, I get another result though... It installs lynx
instead of Firefox. :/

I think this has something to do with the virtual package www-browser.

$ apt-cache show gimp-help-en | grep Depends
Depends: gimp-help-common (= 2.10.0-1), gimp-helpbrowser | www-browser

Apparently the Firefox snap does not provide the www-browser virtual
package, and hence is not recognized as a web browser by the gimp-help-*
packages.

So on jammy:

$ lsb_release -ds
Ubuntu Jammy Jellyfish (development branch)
$ sudo apt-get install www-browser | head -5
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
Package www-browser is a virtual package provided by:
  lynx:i386 2.9.0dev.10-1
E: Package 'www-browser' has no installation candidate

(i.e. Lynx first in the list)

And on impish:

$ lsb_release -ds
Ubuntu 21.10
$ sudo apt-get install www-browser | head -5
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
Package www-browser is a virtual package provided by:
  firefox 94.0+build3-0ubuntu0.21.10.1
E: Package 'www-browser' has no installation candidate

(i.e. Firefox first in the list)

I guess it would be possible to add some "hack" to language-selector to
fix the specific issue as reported in this bug. But we should probably
try to find a more proper fix, where the Firefox snap actually is
recognized as a web browser by the system.

** Also affects: snapcraft
   Importance: Undecided
       Status: New

** Changed in: snapcraft
       Status: New => Confirmed

** Changed in: language-selector (Ubuntu)
   Importance: Undecided => High

** Changed in: language-selector (Ubuntu)
       Status: New => Confirmed

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1950550

Title:
  language support app automatically installs firefox deb package
  (21.10)

Status in Snapcraft:
  Confirmed
Status in language-selector package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Ubuntu 21.10
  language-selector 0.216

  If the initial 'Language support is not installed completely' prompt
  on opening the app is accepted, the Firefox deb package will be
  installed alongside the default Firefox snap package, resulting in two
  installations of Firefox on the computer. This happens even though, in
  my case, only the 'gimp-help-en' package is listed for installation,
  and 'firefox' does not seem to be a dependency of it.

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