Chrome Now Available for Mac or Linux : Hackers Only | Hacker News Reader

Chrome Now Available for Mac or Linux : Hackers Only

blog.chromium.org

117 pointsdatums37 comments

I installed Chromium on my Ubuntu box the other day. It is missing many features (plugins, bookmarks weren't working right, options missing, etc), as I expected from an alpha build.

It looks pretty good so far, though:

- It's really fast (compared to Firefox and Konqueror - yes I use KUbuntu)

- The UI looks similar to the Chrome on Windows (which I really like), except that it has an extra title bar.

- It didn't crash as I spent a few hours using it instead of firefox.

- It was really, really easy to install: Simply add the repositories to your /etc/apt/sources.list file:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Then:

aptitude update && aptitude install chromium-browser

Can't wait till they get plug ins and extensions working... Then I won't miss Firefox at all.

And the big selling point for this browser is missing on Linux:

- You don't get the each tab in its own process.

Erm, yes you do. The assignment of tabs to processes is the same as on Windows.

I stand corrected, my local chromium-browser from just a few days ago had them all in a single process, but after upgrading I see that they have something working and it is spawning several processes for ever tab I open.

u can use 'window decoration' and 'window rules' menus in compiz to make that ugly titlebar disappear and keep chrome always maximized.. looks nicer that way

I was surprised to see that Google's automatic-update system for Linux is to just hook into the native packaging system (for Ubuntu/Debian this is APT, it sounds like they're planning Yum integration for Fedora, etc.)

I'm not sure whether to be annoyed that their installer messes with my system configuration, or to applaud them for not re-inventing the auto-update wheel yet again.

I suppose the advantage of Firefox's update mechanism is that the browser can present nice 'please shutdown now' dialogs; on the other hand, Ubuntu already refuses to upgrade Firefox while there's a firefox process running, so maybe this is a net win after all.

Chrome should soon be able to update without going horribly wrong. (This is more difficult than you probably suspect since we exec new processes for new tabs much of the time).

We certainly don't want to reinvent auto-updating when we don't need to. Sticking a new apt source into your system config is a /little/ freakly, but not nearly as bad as assuming that user processes are going to update system binaries.

sounds like you're working on Chrome -- it's awesome! Great job.

Actually Ubuntu (9.04) doesn't ask you to close firefox, it does "after the install" not before.

Of course, if you don't Firefox will generally start behaving in strange and disturbing ways...

> I'm not sure whether to be annoyed that their installer messes with my system configuration...

Could you add more details / post a link before I try installing? I didn't see anything in the release notes, etc. Thanks.

It adds an Apt repository to your system in order to keep Chrome up to date, and adds a launcher to /usr/share/applications. Those are the only modifications; even Chrome itself is self-contained within /opt/google.

For those of you who have been using the daily Chromium dev builds, this build seems identical except for the minor branding change (Chrome vs Chromium).

And it seems like Chrome includes update engine, unlike Chromium.

It's cut from the same tree of course. However, the official builds have crash reporting and auto updating.

Unless you're actually building from source and writing patches, please use the official builds. We do look at the crash reports!

Does it have to be called chromium?

Because there is a game by that name already http://www.reptilelabour.com/software/chromium/ and it'll be a little weird to have both installed at the same time.

I see the binary and deb package are called google-chrome - is that intended to stay that way, or is it temporary at that name?

Also, if you are making a native package you don't need to put stuff in /opt - I don't even have a /opt. Put it in /usr/share/google-chrome instead (or /usr/share/chrome if the package name won't have google).

And finally, I'm not so sure I like the cron.daily and the postinst messing with the apt/sources.list - unless I missed it, I didn't even see it ask first.

I do understand the desire to update frequently, but I think you would do much better to go in reverse:

Instead of download a deb and install it, ask people to put the repository in the source.list, and install it that way. Then you are assured that the repository is there.

You don't even need a link to download it, make the repository the only official way to get it. (And include a .tar.gz for those that need it.)

It's called Chromium - that ship sailed a long time ago. The distribution packages will probably call it chromium-browser. The official releases are google-chome.

Since this isn't a distribution package, /opt is the correct place for it.

The cron script is unfortunate, but there's a good reason for it (see the comments at the top). We're doing the best we can with a non-distro package.

Unfortunately, having people configure their sources list fails for the same reason (it gets overridden by dist-upgrade sometimes).

Anyone know if the fonts are a "known issue" or on purpose (Linux)? They seem very unreadable/not-using-my-AA-settings compared to FF.

Nice and snappy though!

Here, they tend to be 'not drawn at all', or all heaped up in a corner. I'm also getting a lot of messages like:

    ERROR: unable to open font '0'
    ERROR: unable to open font '101'
    ERROR: unable to open font '402'
    ERROR: unable to open font '101'
    ERROR: unable to open font '603'

...and none of the links are clickable.

Opps! That's a renderer failing to open font files. At this stage we have lots of bugs so that is probably just something which I'll keep at the back of my mind for the future.

However, if you're willing to put some work into debugging it, please free feel to file a bug at crbug.com.

We aren't plumbing settings into the renderers yet. The fonts shouldn't be "unreadable", but I know that fonts are a very personal and emotive topic ;)

Doesn't work with 10.4.11 (cross post from other thread)

Any chance of having an .rpm release at some point? Or even just a plain binary .tgz? I know it's perverted but I prefer Fedora over Ubuntu.

Support for other Linux distributions is planned; unpacking the .deb files by hand may work.

These builds have been around for a little bit, but Chrome is much faster. Finally we have respectable JS performance on Linux; the first few tests of Dromeao run 4x faster on the Chromium nightly v. Firefox nightly. Excited to see more progress here.

Good stuff. Thank God the Mac version doesn't have that awful blue color that Chrome has on Windows. When Chrome is ripe with all features and add-ons like AdBlock Plus, Firebug and GreaseMonkey -- FF will have to shape up.

Oh just you wait, the blue will come. And even better on Linux they plan on painting for own windows borders (they don't like your window manager) so it looks like Vista in the name of branding.

Citation please?

"My other priority is to ensure that the core essence of Chrome's design makes it to each of our platforms. A key aspect to this is the "Skyline" of the browser with tabs merging with the title bar and the general visual design. There are other aspects too mainly related to how certain features work. To me, it's important that the product be recognizable from a distance as "Chrome" - e.g when seen on TV or over someone's shoulder. I do believe it's possible to achieve this and still be harmonious with the target operating system. "

Ben Goodger (From the chromium-dev mailinglist)

And when this was complained about Alex Russell replied by saying "Then you don't want Chrome"

http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev/browse_thread/th...

No we don't. Fitting in with different windows managers is probably going to be a case of distributions skinning Chromium based on their default WM.

But we have bigger fish to fry for the moment.

Having said that. It would be hilarious, so it might be an option :)

Looking great. Though I find it amazing that they haven't implemented command-arrow hotkeys for forward/back. That's approximately the 2nd feature I would implement, after the actual browser engine.

Alt+arrow keys works fine here for forward/back. On Linux.

Honestly, this thing is stabler than the latest Firefox on Linux!

And on top of that, it takes 1-2 seconds to open up vs. 14 seconds for Firefox.

(My PC has 3GB RAM, 2GHz Intel Dual core 2 processor, Ubuntu 8.10)

Oh, same shit again. They wants ia32 libs on x86_64 systems. Same with Android SDK, Earth and so on. Is it so difficult to rebuild the sources?!

This issue with Chrome is that V8 is a 32-bit code generator. 64-bit support is coming and, as soon as it's ready, we'll have real 64-bit packages.

Why do I think this will fail on the Mac?

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