'Hot key' to web is different than the web found installed on my PC
 

Sorry if the topic doesn't make sense. I'm not sure how this is even done. I will try to be as detailed as possible.


When I click on my web browser "mozilla firefox" on the desktop or the icon near the k menu (bottom left), I see that the icon list (home, left, right, refresh, stop) are somewhat basic looking, no fancy coloring, mostly a dull blue.

When I use my hot key using "keytouch-2.1.4-1.2006mcnl.i586", I see the icons more colorful, like from win 2000 to XP.

In help - About Mozilla firefox, I see the same when compared to the old and the new.


Old: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050921 Firefox/1.0.7 Mandriva/1.0.6-15mdk (2006.0)

New: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050921 Firefox/1.0.7 Mandriva/1.0.6-15mdk (2006.0)

When I use the "hot key" and then close the browser, and then click on the icon near the k menu or deskstop, it's the old one.

If I use the "hot key" then use the hot key again or the desktop/quick link, I see the new one.

I don't get it. Sorry if this is too confusing.

I am using MandrivaLinux 2006 (DVD powerpack), KDE 3.4

Are the two instances perhaps being called with different command line options? (When you start something with a GUI, a command line is still implicitly used. It is just hidden from you.)

Sorry, I can't advise you how to check the options FF is called with in either method.

how do you check the command line on an open browser?

If you know the name the browser is running as try:

ps -wo pid,cmd -C <process name>

where <process name> is the name the browser is running as.

If you don't know the name, try:

ps -wo pid,cmd -ax | less

and look for it.

Changing the options is another matter. I am not familiar with your setup. You might have to google. On an old one point something gnome desktop, you could examine/change things by right clicking the icon and selecting "edit." But that was a long time ago.

I got this anyway:


New:
[jeremy@localhost ~]$ ps -wo pid,cmd -C mozilla-firefox
PID CMD
6564 /bin/sh /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox
6582 /usr/lib64/mozilla-firefox-1.0.6/mozilla-firefox-bin
[jeremy@localhost ~]$

Old:
[jeremy@localhost ~]$ ps -wo pid,cmd -C mozilla-firefox
PID CMD
6630 /bin/sh /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox
6648 /usr/lib64/mozilla-firefox-1.0.6/mozilla-firefox-bin
[jeremy@localhost ~]$

Sorry. I am out of ideas.

EDIT: I have done a little googling and it appears that firefox's behavoir can be altered with environmental variables. In particular, it looked like particular profiles can be selected with enironmental variables. (Do your own googling -- I didn't look at this in any depth.)

You can use the /proc filesystem to see what the environmental variables for a running process are. You can find the pid of the process with the commands you've already used -- it is the number in the first column. To (for example) output the environmental variables for process 1234 to filename:

If you do this in each case to different files, you can compare them.

I got it figured out! I'm sorry if you're upset because of how easy this turned out to be. I'm such a noob to linux, but I finally found out what this was.

I can't call it old or new anymore, but what the difference was, was the theme.
I came across tools-themes, and I saw "firefox" as what I called new, and "crystal SVG" as what I called old.

What was odd was that "firefox" was noted to be the default, but what the browser was showing was the "Crystal SVG", so I clicked on the GNONE one, then back to "firefox" to set that as the default, closed the browser, and then reopen it.
It now works properly.

I am so sorry for earlier. I had no idea it was a theme. I thought it was some upgrade or something.
At least it's been solved. Many thanks!

I had thought it might be a theme (even though I had forgotten the term). But I was looking for why it would use different themes (or do anything else different) between the two ways of invoking it.

Glad you got it figured out. BTW, themes don't exist just in Linux. FF has them in that (ahem) other OS too.

One day, I'll understand the linux system/kernel, whatever it is, lol. I really just have one complaint about this. I guess one can say many, but it's not linux's fault for not having all software/hardware/programs to work under linux, being most of it is for windows.
The only true complaint that I can think of is konqueror.
Why does "home" and the webbrowser have to clash together?
If I have "home" toolbar to have up, back, foward, home, delete, why does the browser have that?
If I get the browser to have "stop", then "home" does. I save the profile info, but it doesn't separate from each other like it should.
Oh well. that's okay.
Thanks again!