webbrowser.open works in IDLE and cmd shell but not from cygwin prompt

[Paddy]

On Apr 27, 5:09 am, Gregory Bloom <Gregory.Bl... at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm running Python 2.5 under Windows.  If I fire up IDLE and enter:
>
> >>> import webbrowser
> >>> url = 'http://www.python.org'
> >>> webbrowser.open_new(url)
>
> it works like a champ, opening the page in Firefox.  Same thing goes
> from a Windows cmd shell: it works as advertised.
>
> But if I open a cygwin bash shell and try the same thing from a python
> prompt, I get:
>
> >>> import webbrowser
> >>> url = 'http://www.python.org'
> >>> webbrowser.open_new(url)
>
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
>   File "C:\Python25\lib\webbrowser.py", line 60, in open_new
>     return open(url, 1)
>   File "C:\Python25\lib\webbrowser.py", line 55, in open
>     if browser.open(url, new, autoraise):
>   File "C:\Python25\lib\webbrowser.py", line 185, in open
>     p = subprocess.Popen(cmdline, close_fds=True, preexec_fn=setsid)
>   File "C:\Python25\lib\subprocess.py", line 551, in __init__
>     raise ValueError("close_fds is not supported on Windows "
> ValueError: close_fds is not supported on Windows platforms
>
> What's up with that?  And, more to the point, how can I use webbrowser
> from scripts launched under cygwin?

I have X and kde for cygwin installed.
If i use startxwin to start an xterm, without starting kde, and do
the
above in cygwins python version 2.4.3 i have to wait around 3 minutes
then up pops konqueror at the requested page.

- Paddy.