Qutebrowser

Qutebrowser is a keyboard centric web browser written in Python with vim-like keybindings. It is available as nixpkg qutebrowser.

Installing dictionaries

As of July 2022, there isn't a documented way to install dictionaries systemwide. As a workaround, one can do the following.

Locate a copy of dictcli.py

$ # Get the root of the qutebrowser package
$ nix-store --query --outputs $(which qutebrowser)
nix-store --query --outputs $(which qutebrowser)
$ # Locate dictcli.py within the qutebrowser package root
$ find /nix/store/l50mh79mykqkr6dnx4rkdihcvis9z1v8-qutebrowser-2.5.1 -name dictcli.py
/nix/store/l50mh79mykqkr6dnx4rkdihcvis9z1v8-qutebrowser-2.5.1/share/qutebrowser/scripts/dictcli.py
$ # Then run it
$ /nix/store/l50mh79mykqkr6dnx4rkdihcvis9z1v8-qutebrowser-2.5.1/share/qutebrowser/scripts/dictcli.py
usage: dictcli [-h] {list,update,remove-old,install} ...
dictcli: error: the following arguments are required: cmd
$ # Or more simply:
$ $(find $(nix-store --query --outputs $(which qutebrowser)) -name 'dictcli.py' | head -1)
usage: dictcli [-h] {list,update,remove-old,install} ...
dictcli: error: the following arguments are required: cmd

List installed and available dictionaries

Installed dictionaries will have their installed version listed under the 'installed' column.

$ $(find $(nix-store --query --outputs $(which qutebrowser)) -iname '*dictcli.py*' | head -1) list
Code   Name                      Version Installed
af-ZA  Afrikaans (South Africa)  3.0     -    
bg-BG  Bulgarian (Bulgaria)      3.0     -    
... SNIP ...
en-US  English (United States)   10.1    -
... SNIP ...
uk-UA  Ukrainian (Ukraine)       5.0     -    
vi-VN  Vietnamese (Viet Nam)     3.0     -

Install a dictionary

$ $(find $(nix-store --query --outputs $(which qutebrowser)) -iname '*dictcli.py*' | head -1) install en-US
Installing en-US: English (United States)
/home/winston/.local/share/qutebrowser/qtwebengine_dictionaries does not exist, creating the directory
Downloading https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/deps/hunspell_dictionaries.git/+/main/en-US-10-1.bdic?format=TEXT
Installed to /home/winston/.local/share/qutebrowser/qtwebengine_dictionaries/en-US-10-1.bdic.

Installing Widevine

Widevine is a proprietary digital rights management (DRM) technology from Google used by many web browsers. Widevine is required to watch content on many subscription-based streaming services, e.g. Netflix, Prime Video, Spotify, etc.

To install Widevine with Qutebrowser, you should configure the variable enableWideVine of the package to true. There are different ways to configure that variable, the most common is by overriding the package's variable in an overlay, for example:

# /etc/nixos/configuration.nix
{
  nixpkgs.overlays = [
    (final: prev: { qutebrowser = prev.qutebrowser.override { enableWideVine = true; }; })
  ];
}

Qutebrowser will depend on the package widevine-cdm that is unfree. Follow the documentation on Installing of unfree packages if necessary.

See also

• Qutebrowser website

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