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windows-subsystem-for-linuxddev

DDEV in WSL2: How do I get `ddev launch` to open a browser on Windows?

I'm using DDEV and in my wsl2 installation the ddev launch command stopped working this week, apparently because the xdg-open command didn't work anymore.

Setting the $BROWSER variable to a specific browser didn't work as the standard installation path contains spaces and this breaks in xdg-open. Also it would break if I switch browsers or use a different standard browser.

/usr/bin/xdg-open: www-browser: not found<br />
/usr/bin/xdg-open: links2: not found<br />
/usr/bin/xdg-open: elinks: not found<br />
/usr/bin/xdg-open: links: not found<br />
/usr/bin/xdg-open: lynks: not found<br />
/usr/bin/xdg-open: w3m: not found<br />
xdg-open: no method available for opening [...]<br />
failed to run launch: no method available for opening [...]
Solution

  • In WSL2 I added the Browser variable to ~/.bashrc

    export BROWSER="powershell.exe /C start"

    This opens the standard browser under windows. An alternative way would be to use

    export BROWSER="explorer.exe"

    but this opens the adress twice in the browser.

    Links to other resources: