7 ms·

Chrome Now Available for Mac or Linux : Hackers Only

117 points by datums 17y ago

mcav 17y ago
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).
- dchest 17y ago
  And it seems like Chrome includes update engine, unlike Chromium.
- agl 17y ago
  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!
nixy 17y ago
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.
- icefox 17y ago
  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.
  - loginx 17y ago
    Citation please?
    - icefox 17y ago
      "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/thread/b89ab99a0c848b89# http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev/browse_thread/th...
  - agl 17y ago
    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.
    - agl 17y ago
      Having said that. It would be hilarious, so it might be an option :)
biotech 17y ago
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 http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu 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.
- icefox 17y ago
  And the big selling point for this browser is missing on Linux: - You don't get the each tab in its own process.
  - agl 17y ago
    Erm, yes you do. The assignment of tabs to processes is the same as on Windows.
    - icefox 17y ago
      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.
- adi92 17y ago
  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
thristian 17y ago
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.
- agl 17y ago
  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.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - grandalf 17y ago
    sounds like you're working on Chrome -- it's awesome! Great job.
- igorgue 17y ago
  Actually Ubuntu (9.04) doesn't ask you to close firefox, it does "after the install" not before.
  - krakensden 17y ago
    Of course, if you don't Firefox will generally start behaving in strange and disturbing ways...
- WalterGR 17y ago
chriskelley 17y ago
Doesn't work with 10.4.11 (cross post from other thread)
cookieliaokai 17y ago
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s3graham 17y ago
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!
- thristian 17y ago
  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.
  - agl 17y ago
    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.
- agl 17y ago
  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 ;)
cookiecaper 17y ago
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.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
DrJokepu 17y ago
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.
- mattyb 17y ago
  Support for other Linux distributions is planned; unpacking the .deb files by hand may work.
c00p3r 17y ago
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?!
- agl 17y ago
  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.
ars 17y ago
Does it have to be called chromium? Because there is a game by that name already http://www.reptilelabour.com/software/chromium/ 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.)
- agl 17y ago
  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).
miguelpais 17y ago
Why do I think this will fail on the Mac?
tlrobinson 17y ago
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.
- swaroop 17y ago
  Alt+arrow keys works fine here for forward/back. On Linux.
swaroop 17y ago
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)

117 points by datums 17y ago

mcav 17y ago

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).

dchest 17y ago
And it seems like Chrome includes update engine, unlike Chromium.
agl 17y ago
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!

nixy 17y ago

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.

icefox 17y ago
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.
- loginx 17y ago
  Citation please?
  - icefox 17y ago
    "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/thread/b89ab99a0c848b89# http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev/browse_thread/th...
- agl 17y ago
  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.
  - agl 17y ago
    Having said that. It would be hilarious, so it might be an option :)

biotech 17y ago

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

icefox 17y ago
And the big selling point for this browser is missing on Linux: - You don't get the each tab in its own process.
- agl 17y ago
  Erm, yes you do. The assignment of tabs to processes is the same as on Windows.
  - icefox 17y ago
    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.
adi92 17y ago
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

thristian 17y ago

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.

agl 17y ago
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.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- grandalf 17y ago
  sounds like you're working on Chrome -- it's awesome! Great job.
igorgue 17y ago
Actually Ubuntu (9.04) doesn't ask you to close firefox, it does "after the install" not before.
- krakensden 17y ago
  Of course, if you don't Firefox will generally start behaving in strange and disturbing ways...
WalterGR 17y ago

chriskelley 17y ago

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

cookieliaokai 17y ago

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s3graham 17y ago

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!

thristian 17y ago
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.
- agl 17y ago
  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.
agl 17y ago
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 ;)

cookiecaper 17y ago

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.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

DrJokepu 17y ago

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.

mattyb 17y ago
Support for other Linux distributions is planned; unpacking the .deb files by hand may work.

c00p3r 17y ago

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?!

agl 17y ago
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.

ars 17y ago

Does it have to be called chromium? Because there is a game by that name already http://www.reptilelabour.com/software/chromium/ 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.)

agl 17y ago
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).

miguelpais 17y ago

Why do I think this will fail on the Mac?

tlrobinson 17y ago

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.

swaroop 17y ago
Alt+arrow keys works fine here for forward/back. On Linux.

swaroop 17y ago

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)