Table of Contents
Here are some special ways to launch something.
Debian systems allow to specify certain programs in a system-wide
config file and launch them with sensible-*
commands.
For example, the default browser can be launched with
sensible-browser
and the url as optional parameter. It basically checks the
BROWSER environment variable, splits it by colon ":"
and tries to execute any of that. If that doesn't work, it tries to
execute /usr/bin/x-www-browser (if a
DISPLAY is set) and
/usr/bin/www-browser if not.
There are other sensible-* programs as
sensible-editor and
sensible-pager.
The sensible-* commands are meant to be used from command line. That means that e.g. lynx could be opened, something that you won't want in a graphical environment - as it doesn't open it's own window but relies on the assumption that it is started in a shell.