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> The only officially supported way to use Widevine on Linux is using Chrome on an x86_64 CPU. To be precise it is "The only officially supported way to use Wi

> The only officially supported way to use Widevine on Linux is using Chrome on an x86_64 CPU. To be precise it is "The only officially supported way to use Widevine on Linux is using Chrome on an x86_64 CPU using glibc." In other words, even though I have x86_64 cpu, since I'm on alpine, I'm fucked anyway.

bqmjjx0kac 4y ago
I see Alpine Linux uses musl instead of glibc. Theoretically, couldn't you install or build glibc anyway and launch Chrome with LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/path/to/glibc?
- jvanderbot 4y ago
  You should see all the "system" libraries I have sitting in /opt/<app>/lib for each <app>
coldtea 4y ago
What prevents you from ALSO having glibc?
- rfoo 4y ago
  When people say glibc, they really mean ld.so + libc.so + libm.so + nss + ... And no, glibc really only work with its own dynamic loader (ld.so), and it has to be with same version.
  - coldtea 4y ago
    Again, what prevents you from ALSO having all those? You just need to point to them and run some programs that require them with those...
    - rfoo 4y ago
      There can be only one ld.so in each process. Widevine is a plugin-like .so meant to be loaded into Chrome/Chromium. Because it uses glibc, the entire process hosting it must use glibc. So, what prevents me from ALSO HAVING GLIBC CHROMIUM instead of musl Chromium? Nothing, but I hope you get that it propagates further and it's a horrible idea to just glibc everything on Alpine.
      - coldtea 4y ago
        >There can be only one ld.so in each process. Sure, but you need it for Chromium alone iirc, no? >Because it uses glibc, the entire process hosting it must use glibc. So, what prevents me from ALSO HAVING GLIBC CHROMIUM instead of musl Chromium? Nothing, but I hope you get that it propagates further and it's a horrible idea to just glibc everything on Alpine. Well, don't glibc everything. Just Chromium and its dependencies. How does it "propagate further"? It's not like libraries leak outside where they're told to load!
        rfoo 4y ago
        Sorry, I didn't say it clearly. I want to use the distro (Alpine) packaged Chromium, which links to musl. Not some random Chromium build I found on the Internet. Having to use a glibc Chromium is already too far for me. Do you suggest that in order to support Widevine, a distro (Alpine) should also build Chromium, Firefox and co also with glibc instead of the default (musl), or provide two varaints? Even when they have a Chromium with musl as libc working perfectly fine, except no proprietary DRM support? I'm okay with running a proprietary binary, linked to glibc, by installing the glibc alongside. I'm not okay with having to randomly change other packages already in my system (in this case, my browser) to glibc variant. Edit: Oh, and anything Chromium depends on have to had a glibc variant.
        coldtea 4y ago
        >Do you suggest that in order to support Widevine, a distro (Alpine) should also build Chromium, Firefox and co also with glibc instead of the default (musl), or provide two varaints? Yes, absolutely. I'm not suggesting that it's a good thing that this is needed. But I do suggest that it needs to be done. Will, in the sense that, otherwise, people running Alpine will have to say "OK, as it is, we can forget Widevine and Netflix/Spotify" and leave it at that. That said, since this is something many Alpine users will want, I'd expect to be some known "semi-official" or "reputable third party" build for this, not just "some random Chromium found on the Internet". If not, personally I'd skip Alpine. >Even when they have a Chromium with musl as libc working perfectly fine, except no proprietary DRM support? Well, even then, since this doesn't change the fact that Widevine and thus Spotify/Netflix wont work.
mikojan 4y ago
Can't you just install glibc compat?
shp0ngle 4y ago
If you are using alpine as a desktop distro, don’t you have bigger problems than Netflix not playing? (also how are you even using alpine for desktop. I tried to look it up once and gave up soon)
- bandrami 4y ago
  Things have improved. Both alpine and void-musl are usable desktops nowadays; my DAW is on the latter.
  - butterNaN 4y ago
    What DAW are you using, by the way?
    - bandrami 4y ago
      QTractor. I used to master with Jamin but the master_me LV2 turns out to be easier to use (for me). I also use giada for live looping and mixxx for DJing, all of which work great on musl.
- gray_-_wolf 4y ago
  Not really, honestly these days it works pretty much fine. Basically only issue I have is the DRM and I can live without it.
  - shp0ngle 4y ago
    Are you using some specific distro based on alpine, or just alpine?
    - gray_-_wolf 4y ago
      Just alpine. Works fairly well, I rarely have problems. Except the DRM, but I don't care that much.
stock_toaster 4y ago
Maybe a flatpak would work?
seabrookmx 4y ago
Which is odd because there's lots of ARM Chromebooks. I'm typing this one one right now. So they have a working version of this internally obviously. I guess they just don't ship it stand-alone?
- Qub3d 4y ago
  In the featured article, it delves into this a bit: > Earlier, I said that 'Widevine-in-Chrome-on-Linux-on-aarch64' is not an officially supported platform. > I lied. > Chromebooks exist, many have aarch64 CPUs, they run Chrome on Linux (more or less), and they officially support Widevine. The whole post is worth a read. Its pretty sort and well written!
Zardoz84 4y ago
wasn't Firefox including widevine for DRM stuff ? I don't have any issues playing Netflix and Amazon Video from Firefox in Kubuntu
- calgarymicro 4y ago
  Per the article, > In the instance of Chrome, the browser doesn't implement the DRM itself, but delegates it to a native library referred to as a CDM (Content Decryption Module). > This library is an opaque proprietary blob that we are forbidden to look inside of (at least, that's how they'd prefer it to be). > Graciously, as part of the Chromium project, Google provides the C++ headers required to interface with The Blob. This interface allows other projects like Firefox to implement support for Widevine, via the EME API, using the exact same libwidevinecdm.so blob as Chrome does.
MYEUHD 4y ago
what are reasons to choose musl over glibc? (or glibc over musl?)
- jwandborg 4y ago
  > For broad-based usage, things are less likely to break with glibc. For a specific use case, that may be less important. As a dangerous generalization, musl is usually lighter on resources, but glibc is faster. If using ARM or very limited hardware, musl may in fact be faster, but with more available hardware resources, glibc usually wins, often by using non-standard optimizations (cheating). https://www.reddit.com/r/voidlinux/comments/muoqis/comment/gv8i8z8/ https://www.reddit.com/r/voidlinux/comments/muoqis/comment/g...
andrepd 4y ago
I've danced this dance at some point, I wanted to do things right and "reward content creators". Then I gave up. Paying money and having to install a proprietary browser and run proprietary software to stream low-quality video (not download, or move to a different device), if the company deems it available to you at that particular place and time. Meanwhile torrents let you start watching most content in under 30s, at whichever quality you'd like, in a convenient mkv you can stick anywhere. No thanks. I'll stick to patreon and buying albums to assuage my guilty conscience and reward content creators.

bqmjjx0kac 4y ago

I see Alpine Linux uses musl instead of glibc. Theoretically, couldn't you install or build glibc anyway and launch Chrome with LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/path/to/glibc?

jvanderbot 4y ago
You should see all the "system" libraries I have sitting in /opt/<app>/lib for each <app>

coldtea 4y ago

What prevents you from ALSO having glibc?

rfoo 4y ago
When people say glibc, they really mean ld.so + libc.so + libm.so + nss + ... And no, glibc really only work with its own dynamic loader (ld.so), and it has to be with same version.
- coldtea 4y ago
  Again, what prevents you from ALSO having all those? You just need to point to them and run some programs that require them with those...
  - rfoo 4y ago
    There can be only one ld.so in each process. Widevine is a plugin-like .so meant to be loaded into Chrome/Chromium. Because it uses glibc, the entire process hosting it must use glibc. So, what prevents me from ALSO HAVING GLIBC CHROMIUM instead of musl Chromium? Nothing, but I hope you get that it propagates further and it's a horrible idea to just glibc everything on Alpine.
    - coldtea 4y ago
      >There can be only one ld.so in each process. Sure, but you need it for Chromium alone iirc, no? >Because it uses glibc, the entire process hosting it must use glibc. So, what prevents me from ALSO HAVING GLIBC CHROMIUM instead of musl Chromium? Nothing, but I hope you get that it propagates further and it's a horrible idea to just glibc everything on Alpine. Well, don't glibc everything. Just Chromium and its dependencies. How does it "propagate further"? It's not like libraries leak outside where they're told to load!
      - rfoo 4y ago
        Sorry, I didn't say it clearly. I want to use the distro (Alpine) packaged Chromium, which links to musl. Not some random Chromium build I found on the Internet. Having to use a glibc Chromium is already too far for me. Do you suggest that in order to support Widevine, a distro (Alpine) should also build Chromium, Firefox and co also with glibc instead of the default (musl), or provide two varaints? Even when they have a Chromium with musl as libc working perfectly fine, except no proprietary DRM support? I'm okay with running a proprietary binary, linked to glibc, by installing the glibc alongside. I'm not okay with having to randomly change other packages already in my system (in this case, my browser) to glibc variant. Edit: Oh, and anything Chromium depends on have to had a glibc variant.
        coldtea 4y ago
        >Do you suggest that in order to support Widevine, a distro (Alpine) should also build Chromium, Firefox and co also with glibc instead of the default (musl), or provide two varaints? Yes, absolutely. I'm not suggesting that it's a good thing that this is needed. But I do suggest that it needs to be done. Will, in the sense that, otherwise, people running Alpine will have to say "OK, as it is, we can forget Widevine and Netflix/Spotify" and leave it at that. That said, since this is something many Alpine users will want, I'd expect to be some known "semi-official" or "reputable third party" build for this, not just "some random Chromium found on the Internet". If not, personally I'd skip Alpine. >Even when they have a Chromium with musl as libc working perfectly fine, except no proprietary DRM support? Well, even then, since this doesn't change the fact that Widevine and thus Spotify/Netflix wont work.

mikojan 4y ago

Can't you just install glibc compat?

shp0ngle 4y ago

If you are using alpine as a desktop distro, don’t you have bigger problems than Netflix not playing? (also how are you even using alpine for desktop. I tried to look it up once and gave up soon)

bandrami 4y ago
Things have improved. Both alpine and void-musl are usable desktops nowadays; my DAW is on the latter.
- butterNaN 4y ago
  What DAW are you using, by the way?
  - bandrami 4y ago
    QTractor. I used to master with Jamin but the master_me LV2 turns out to be easier to use (for me). I also use giada for live looping and mixxx for DJing, all of which work great on musl.
gray_-_wolf 4y ago
Not really, honestly these days it works pretty much fine. Basically only issue I have is the DRM and I can live without it.
- shp0ngle 4y ago
  Are you using some specific distro based on alpine, or just alpine?
  - gray_-_wolf 4y ago
    Just alpine. Works fairly well, I rarely have problems. Except the DRM, but I don't care that much.

stock_toaster 4y ago

Maybe a flatpak would work?

seabrookmx 4y ago

Which is odd because there's lots of ARM Chromebooks. I'm typing this one one right now. So they have a working version of this internally obviously. I guess they just don't ship it stand-alone?

Qub3d 4y ago
In the featured article, it delves into this a bit: > Earlier, I said that 'Widevine-in-Chrome-on-Linux-on-aarch64' is not an officially supported platform. > I lied. > Chromebooks exist, many have aarch64 CPUs, they run Chrome on Linux (more or less), and they officially support Widevine. The whole post is worth a read. Its pretty sort and well written!

Zardoz84 4y ago

wasn't Firefox including widevine for DRM stuff ? I don't have any issues playing Netflix and Amazon Video from Firefox in Kubuntu

calgarymicro 4y ago
Per the article, > In the instance of Chrome, the browser doesn't implement the DRM itself, but delegates it to a native library referred to as a CDM (Content Decryption Module). > This library is an opaque proprietary blob that we are forbidden to look inside of (at least, that's how they'd prefer it to be). > Graciously, as part of the Chromium project, Google provides the C++ headers required to interface with The Blob. This interface allows other projects like Firefox to implement support for Widevine, via the EME API, using the exact same libwidevinecdm.so blob as Chrome does.

MYEUHD 4y ago

what are reasons to choose musl over glibc? (or glibc over musl?)

jwandborg 4y ago
> For broad-based usage, things are less likely to break with glibc. For a specific use case, that may be less important. As a dangerous generalization, musl is usually lighter on resources, but glibc is faster. If using ARM or very limited hardware, musl may in fact be faster, but with more available hardware resources, glibc usually wins, often by using non-standard optimizations (cheating). https://www.reddit.com/r/voidlinux/comments/muoqis/comment/gv8i8z8/ https://www.reddit.com/r/voidlinux/comments/muoqis/comment/g...

andrepd 4y ago

I've danced this dance at some point, I wanted to do things right and "reward content creators". Then I gave up. Paying money and having to install a proprietary browser and run proprietary software to stream low-quality video (not download, or move to a different device), if the company deems it available to you at that particular place and time. Meanwhile torrents let you start watching most content in under 30s, at whichever quality you'd like, in a convenient mkv you can stick anywhere. No thanks. I'll stick to patreon and buying albums to assuage my guilty conscience and reward content creators.