this is sort of a newbie question, but i'm not a newbie...

[przxqgl]

there used to be dozens of web browsers available for kubuntu... i recall, probably 10 years ago, having 10 or 12 different browsers installed.

i can't seem to find them, these days... and it's probably because i don't have the correct repositories installed. i have the default repositories that come with bionic, plus kubuntu backports, and kubuntu-restricted-extras... i seem to recall a few others that may be where the browsers are located, but i don't remember what they are.

can somebody help me out?

[chimak111]

If you mention the browsers or at least some of them?

AFAICT, most any browser should work in Kubuntu. Some like Epiphany aka Web may pull in half of GNOME but still work.

Why don't you provide the output of inxi -r? That'll let people see what repos you have. You may need to install inxi first. I don't think Kubuntu includes it by default.

[przxqgl]

opera, rekonq, midori, lynx, vivaldi, brave, pale moon, dillo, w3m, tor browser, dooble, ice weasel, swiftweasel, swiftfox...

[Snowhog]

To the best of my knowledge, all of those are 'third party' browsers, and none of them are included in any 'official' *buntu repository that is part of a Kubuntu installation; any one of them would have to be downloaded/installed from their respective site, or via a PPA (if they have one).

[chimak111]

Run apt search browser > browser.txt for a (long) list of what's available.

Others need to be installed via ppas or from the browser's home site or, in the case of Tor, by first installing torbrowser-launcher/bionic 0.2.9-2 amd64.

[przxqgl]

okay, that brings me to the next part of the question: i downloaded a .rpm file to install opera, which, in the past, i would have installed with synaptic. however, i can't figure out how to open the local file with synaptic -- there's no "File -> Open" command, and, while the "Open with..." command has synaptic as one of its suggestions, it opens synaptic, but, as far as i can tell, it doesn't install opera. the other option offered by "Open with..." is "Discover" which doesn't obviously do anything, and never has: "Discover" has been a solid waste of time from the moment it was installed, which is why i use synaptic.

[chimak111]

Why rpm? Download the deb: the download button on https://www.opera.com/computer defaults to the deb.

[przxqgl]

... because that's the way i've always done it before?

okay, so it has been a while since i installed anything... ;-)

and, you're right, opera.com defaults to the deb, but i have got out of the habit of installing most things from web sites.

it defaults to opening .deb files with synaptic, but, as before, it doesn't appear to do anything about installing anything once synaptic is open... how do i select a local file from synaptic, in order to install it?

i feel really stupid... :/

[chimak111]

... because that's the way i've always done it before?

okay, so it has been a while since i installed anything... ;-)

and, you're right, opera.com defaults to the deb, but i have got out of the habit of installing most things from web sites.

Well, if that's how it is, all the best!

[jglen490]

You can use the qapt-deb-installer (which should be already in your Kubuntu - check Muon or Synaptic) to install downloaded .deb files. But, yeah, it's not something that most of us do everyday!

If the qapt thing is installed, you may be also to just click (maybe doubleclick) on the whatever.deb file in Dolphin and install it. Or in konsole

qapt-deb-installer /path/to/file.deb

[chimak111]

Re. Midori, see https://www.midori-browser.org/2018/11/30/lorem-ipsum/

[przxqgl]

@jglen490 - that worked. thanks. opera is now installed.

@chimak111 - i didn't even know what "snap" was, and i typed "snap install midori" into a console, and all kinds of weird things happened, and are still happening... and suddenly i have midori on my computer, as well... what do you know.

the last time i tried to install something from a web site was long enough ago that a trusted linux guru told me that it was a "windows way of thinking" and that linux software was installed from repositories.

i guess that kind of gives you an idea of how long ago was the last time i installed new software on linux...

[przxqgl]

okay, here's a question...

yesterday, i couldn't find a repository for installing opera, so i installed it from the web site.

today, i got notified of some updates to the system, and one of the things it updated was "opera-stable"... from a repository...

so why couldn't i find that repository yesterday?

[jglen490]

That's a very good question ...

[jlittle]

[QUOTE=przxqgl;423487
so why couldn't i find that repository yesterday?[/QUOTE]
Looking at the opera post install script, I see at the top:

APT_FILE="/etc/apt/sources.list.d/opera-stable.list"
OPERA_REPO="deb.opera.com\/opera-stable\/"

That looks like the installation adds a repository. Have a look in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/opera-stable.list.