Micro does not respect the default terminal app

[in-in]

I am using Linux Mint 22 Cinnamon with Alacritty terminal installed. In "Preferred Applications" I selected Alacritty as the default app for the terminal.

Also in "update-alternatives" I selected Alacritty as the default app for x-terminal-emulator

In all places where I call the terminal, Alacritty opens, for example, by the hotkey "Crtl+Alt+T" or in the file manager "Open in Terminal"

But when I launch Micro via the shortcut from the menu, the editor opens in Gnome-terminal. What should I do to make Micro open in the terminal by default(Alacritty)?

Example of a menu shortcut:

[Desktop Entry]

Name=Micro
GenericName=Text Editor
Comment=Edit text files in a terminal

Icon=/usr/share/micro/micro-logo-mark.svg
Type=Application
Categories=Utility;TextEditor;Development;
Keywords=text;editor;syntax;terminal;

Exec=micro %F
StartupNotify=false
Terminal=true
MimeType=text/plain;text/x-chdr;text/x-csrc;text/x-c++hdr;text/x-c++src;text/x-java;text/x-dsrc;text/x-pascal;text/x-perl;text/x-python;application/x-php;application/x-httpd-php3;application/x-httpd-php4;application/x-httpd-php5;application/xml;text/html;text/css;text/x-sql;text/x-diff;

[JoeKar]

I can't find a big difference compared to vim.desktop.
Do you have (g)vim (not tiny!) installed in your distribution too and try it with the same approach?

Currently I've to assume that this is caused by the Cinnamon DE opening Terminal=true-apps not with x-terminal-emulator.

BTW (seems my assumption is right)...
https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/rl167n/change_default_terminal_emulator_in_cinnamon/ (unfortunately with micro too)
...and maybe...
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1261901/unable-to-set-terminator-as-default-terminal-in-ubuntu-with-cinnamon-desktop
...helps.

[in-in]

Thanks a lot for the helpful links

I installed neovim and launched it from the shortcut in the menu, it behaves the same as Micro, that is, it opens in gnome-terminal
Example of a shortcut (removed translations for brevity)

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Neovim
GenericName=Text Editor
Comment=Edit text files
TryExec=nvim
Exec=nvim %F
Terminal=true
Type=Application
Keywords=Text;editor;
Icon=nvim
Categories=Utility;TextEditor;
StartupNotify=false
MimeType=text/english;text/plain;text/x-makefile;text/x-c++hdr;text/x-c++src;text/x-chdr;text/x-csrc;text/x-java;text/x-moc;text/x-pascal;text/x-tcl;text/x-tex;application/x-shellscript;text/x-c;text/x-c++;

I didn't mention “default-applications” earlier because when you select “Preferred Applications” they are automatically set.

I also found this message in dconf:
"DEPRECATED: This key is deprecated and ignored. The default terminal is handled in GIO."
but I don't know what GIO is, maybe this is the place where gnome-terminal is hardcoded

According to this message, the problem is much deeper than I initially thought. And I don't have the strength to figure it out. So the only solution that works in my case is to completely remove gnome-terminal
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues/1559#note_592512

[JoeKar]

I had a look into gnome-shell#1559 and glib#338 and cam to the conclusion that as long as your glib in Mint is new enough (needs glib#2839) you should be able to workaround this situation with xdg-terminal-exec, which you can obtain via the distribution repository or via e.g. xdg-terminal-exec.
Debian provides it from testing upwards, so it's not in stable yet (see: https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=xdg-terminal-exec&searchon=names&suite=all&section=all).

[in-in]

I installed xdg-terminal-exec, but nothing happens. That is, there are no errors and the editor does not open at all. I thought that xdg-terminal-exec simply does not work or perhaps it needs to be additionally configured.

[JoeKar]

or perhaps it needs to be additionally configured.

Yes, it must be configured as documented here: https://github.com/Vladimir-csp/xdg-terminal-exec?tab=readme-ov-file#configuration
And you need at least glib 2.75.0

[in-in]

I'm not sure what version of glib I have, since there is no package with that name, but there is libglib2.0-bin 2.80.0. Perhaps glib itself is also version 2.80.0

Sorry, but I didn't understand what to do with these two files and what to write in them.
~/.config/X-Cinnamon-xdg-terminals.list
~/.config/xdg-terminals.list
For me this is too complicated a system, I found it easier to just remove gnome-terminal.

I found another useful link
linuxmint/cinnamon#9255

[Andriamanitra]

To summarize the issue:

• There is no XDG specification for "default terminal" yet. Gnome and Cinnamon have a (deprecated?) desktop environment–specific way to configure it, but the [email protected] applet does not seem to use these settings.

  # Gnome
  gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.default-applications.terminal exec
  gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.default-applications.terminal exec-arg
  # Cinnamon
  gsettings get org.cinnamon.desktop.default-applications.terminal exec
  gsettings get org.cinnamon.desktop.default-applications.terminal exec-arg
  

• Glib has a hardcoded list of "known terminals" ¹ that gio launch micro.desktop uses to determine which terminal to use. To allow users to work around this limitation the list has xdg-terminal-exec as the first entry (will take priority if it exists).
• On my distro (OpenSUSE Tumbleweed) these is already a shell script /usr/bin/xdg-terminal which respects the DE-specific configuration. Unfortunately it uses different name (xdg-terminal vs xdg-terminal-exec) so the hard-coded list in gio does not pick it up. I was able to fix this by running sudo ln -s /usr/bin/xdg-terminal /usr/local/bin/xdg-terminal-exec.
• Launchers other than [email protected] may have their own ways to choose which terminal to use. I've been using rofi which never had this issue, micro always opened in my preferred terminal.

Footnotes

1. https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib/-/blob/2c7624fafbc7eca4fdd5bc1d8700d0caddd4d89b/gio/gdesktopappinfo.c#L2701 ↩

[JoeKar]

I still assume that a configured xdg-terminal-exec should do the trick here. Why ever these DEs formerly offered a dialog to set a default application, when not every piece was considered. As end user I would call it a bug, but the DE maintainers most probably call it a feature. 😉