I have both app-text/evince and app-text/acroread installed. I configured firefox to use evince as default app for opening PDF files. When I left-click on a link to a PDF file, the PDF file is opened using evince. However, if I right-click on the same link, choose "Save target as..." to save a local copy of the document and then use "Open" from the context menu in firefox' download manager, the PDF is opened using acroread instead of evince. This is on ~amd64 using: app-text/acroread-9.3 app-text/evince-2.28.2 www-client/mozilla-firefox-3.6-r1 gnome-2.28.1 $ emerge --info www-client/mozilla-firefox Portage 2.1.7.17 (default/linux/amd64/10.0/desktop, gcc-4.3.4, glibc-2.11-r1, 2.6.32-gentoo-r3 x86_64) ================================================================= System Settings ================================================================= System uname: Linux-2.6.32-gentoo-r3-x86_64-Intel-R-_Core-TM-2_Duo_CPU_P9400_@_2.40GHz-with-gentoo-2.0.1 Timestamp of tree: Sat, 30 Jan 2010 23:45:01 +0000 app-shells/bash: 4.0_p37 dev-java/java-config: 2.1.10 dev-lang/python: 2.6.4-r1, 3.1.1-r1 dev-python/pycrypto: 2.1.0 dev-util/cmake: 2.8.0-r1 sys-apps/baselayout: 2.0.1 sys-apps/openrc: 0.6.0-r1 sys-apps/sandbox: 2.2 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.65 sys-devel/automake: 1.9.6-r3, 1.10.3, 1.11.1 sys-devel/binutils: 2.20 sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.1 sys-devel/libtool: 2.2.6b virtual/os-headers: 2.6.30-r1 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64 ~amd64" ACCEPT_LICENSE="* -@EULA dlj-1.1 skype-eula" CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe" CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/share/X11/xkb /var/lib/hsqldb" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/gentoo-release /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d /etc/terminfo /etc/texmf/language.dat.d /etc/texmf/language.def.d /etc/texmf/updmap.d /etc/texmf/web2c" CXXFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="assume-digests distlocks fixpackages news parallel-fetch protect-owned sandbox sfperms strict unmerge-logs unmerge-orphans userfetch" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://mirror.ovh.net/gentoo-distfiles/" LANG="de_DE.UTF-8" LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1" LINGUAS="de" MAKEOPTS="-j -l4" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles/packages/tosh" PORTAGE_CONFIGROOT="/" PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp/tosh" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage-overlay/my /usr/local/portage-overlay/sci /usr/local/portage-overlay/gnome" SYNC="rsync://rsync.europe.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="X a52 aac acl acpi alsa amd64 bash-completion berkdb bluetooth branding bzip2 cairo caps cdr cli consolekit cracklib crypt cups cxx dbus dri dts dvd dvdr emboss encode exif fam firefox flac fortran fuse gdbm gif gnome gnome-keyring gpm gstreamer gtk gudev hal iconv idn ipv6 jpeg laptop libnotify mad mikmod mmx mng modules mp3 mp4 mpeg mudflap multilib nautilus ncurses networkmanager nls nptl nptlonly nvidia ogg opengl openmp pam pcre pdf perl png policykit ppds pppd python qt3support quicktime readline reflection samba sdl session smp spell spl sse sse2 ssl startup-notification svg sysfs tcpd thunar tiff truetype udev unicode usb vim-syntax vorbis webkit x264 xinerama xml xorg xscreensaver xulrunner xv xvid zlib" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mmap_emul mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" APACHE2_MODULES="actions alias auth_basic authn_alias authn_anon authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache dav dav_fs dav_lock deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation rewrite setenvif speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="evdev synaptics" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" LINGUAS="de" QEMU_SOFTMMU_TARGETS="i386 x86_64" QEMU_USER_TARGETS="i386 x86_64" RUBY_TARGETS="ruby18" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia vesa" Unset: CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, FFLAGS, INSTALL_MASK, LC_ALL, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS ================================================================= Package Settings ================================================================= www-client/mozilla-firefox-3.6-r1 was built with the following: USE="alsa dbus gnome libnotify (multilib) startup-notification -bindist -custom-optimization -java -wifi" LINGUAS="de -af -ar -as -be -bg -bn -bn_BD -bn_IN -ca -cs -cy -da -el -en -en_GB -en_US -eo -es -es_AR -es_CL -es_ES -es_MX -et -eu -fa -fi -fr -fy -fy_NL -ga -ga_IE -gl -gu -gu_IN -he -hi -hi_IN -hr -hu -id -is -it -ja -ka -kk -kn -ko -ku -lt -lv -mk -ml -mr -nb -nb_NO -nl -nn -nn_NO -oc -or -pa -pa_IN -pl -pt -pt_BR -pt_PT -rm -ro -ru -si -sk -sl -sq -sr -sv -sv_SE -ta -ta_LK -te -th -tr -uk -vi -zh_CN -zh_TW" CFLAGS="-march=native -pipe -fPIC -Wno-return-type -w" CXXFLAGS="-march=native -pipe -fPIC -Wno-return-type -w"
This has nothing to do with firefox, it has to do with windows manager.
(In reply to comment #1) > This has nothing to do with firefox, it has to do with windows manager. I'm using gnome as my desktop environment and metacity as window manager. I strongly doubt that metacity has got anything to do with which application is used by firefox to open PDF documents, but I'm always eager to learn something new. Where can I configure metacity to tell firefox to use evince for opening PDF files when activating "open" in the context menu of firefox' download manager? In case you meant desktop environment when you said "windows manager": When I double click a PDF document in a nautilus window, it is opened using evince. So it looks to me as if evince is configured correctly as the default application for opening PDF files, as far as the gnome desktop is concerned.
configure via firefox preferences -> applications
