Dolphin: Setup default "Open terminal here" outside of Plasma

Help
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1

Hello,

I am using Debian 13 with XFCE (not KDE!) but Dolphin as file manager.

My problem is that Dolphin opens “xterm” when I use “Open terminal here…” in a directory.

What I want is my default terminal.

IMHO my default is “Terminator”. I installed xdg-terminal-exec and it always opens Terminator. Also XFCE alwas is opening “Terminator” when I select “Terminal” (executing: “exo-open --launch TerminalEmulator”) from the whisker start menu. To my knowledge “exo-open” is an XFCE specific application, but I am not sure.

I am confused. Isn’t there a free desktop standard? Isn’t there a way to setup a default terminal independent from the desktop environment used? To my knowledge even “xdg-terminal-open” is not “standard” but tries to determine the “default” based on the DE installed.

If there is a DE-independent way, how can I setup a terminal? And how can I setup Dolphin to use it?

The Dolphin settings do not offer me to setup a terminal.

2

There is not DE-independent way to setup a default terminal emulator sadly, atm at least.

With KDE software including dolphin, this is set in ~/.config/kdeglobals

[General]
TerminalService=terminator.desktop
TerminalApplication=terminator

You can do it with those command lines (kwriteconfig might not be available):

kwriteconfig --file kdeglobals --group General --key TerminalService terminator.desktop
kwriteconfig --file kdeglobals --group General --key TerminalApplication terminator

On a more recent distro it would be kwriteconfig6, since you are using debian and so a very old version of Dolphin.

You can replace terminator.desktop by the real application id of your terminal emulator.
This is so application can find the icon for the application

You might need to restart dolphin to take it into account.

That’s a plasma desktop setting, “default application”. It is not used just by dolphin.