[kde-linux] Help with desktop file, exec and PATH environment variable

[Kevin Krammer]

On Friday 25 July 2008, jisaitua at covenco.cl wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I would appreciate if someone could help me with the following problem.
> I'm running kubuntu hardy (KDE 3.5.9) and this is the situation:
>         - I have myapp in /usr/bin/myapp and in /opt/bin/myapp
>         - I also have myapp_entry.desktop in /usr/share/applications with
> the Exec line as "Exec=myapp".
>         - I added /opt/bin into PATH (editing /etc/environment). So PATH
> has the following:
> /opt/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/
>games
>
> Now, when I launch "kdialog --msgbox `echo $PATH`" using ALT+F2 it shows
> correctly:
> /opt/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/
>games
>
> When I launch "myapp" using ALT+F2 it runs /opt/bin/myapp as expected.
> But, and here is my problem, when I launch "myapp_entry" using ALT+F2 it
> runs /usr/bin/myapp and not /opt/bin/myapp as I would expect.

Depending on what the desktop-entry specification says this could be the 
intended behavior, i.e. prefer the application on the same prefix as 
the .desktop file over one in PATH.

For example in a scenario where you'd have myapp and myapp_entry.desktop both 
in /usr/ and /usr/local, the respective menu entry would launch the 
respective program.

However my guess is that it is actually a bug, so I suggest you file a bug 
report against kdelibs. Might be just in time for KDE 3.5.10
Would be interesting to know if anyone with a KDE4 setup can reproduce it.

Cheers,
Kevin

-- 
Kevin Krammer, KDE developer, xdg-utils developer
KDE user support, developer mentoring
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