Can't make Opera the preferred browser on Eee

Well, I haven't posted anything for the last three days due to my journey to Brazil. But, now I've arrived and things are settling down again and I've been able to spend some time getting acquainted with my new netbook.
I'm still enormously impressed with this little machine but I'm starting to see some of its limitations.
For example, although Opera 9.60 is installed and works fine, I can't make it my preferred browser. So, the web-apps that show up on the Desktop always open in Firefox.
I posted to the EeePC forums on this one but none of the recommendations helped me.
I subsequently posted to the Opera Linux forums but have yet to receive a reply. This seems to suggest that a solution just isn't available.