Google Chrome under Linux lives!


When I talked about browsers last month, I said that Google Chrome was not available under Linux. Well, I was happy to see that I was only half correct. Google does not have a native version of Chrome for Linux yet, but the Win32 version runs fine under Linux using the Wine libraries and is available packaged as the open source Chromium project by CodeWeavers.com. You have to manually download a .deb file and then run dpkg -i filename.deb which takes at least 20 or 30 seconds. Whew! Installing software under Linux is so hard and complicated! Remember, only computer geeks are capable of typing three words at a command line to install software under Linux.

I had thought that Ubuntu had Chromium available as an installable package in its universal repository since I tried doing an apt-get install chromium command and it worked. But when I typed chromium after that, what came up was some shooting spaceship game which I was really bad at playing! That sure does not look like a browser and my spaceship kept getting blown up too. There actually is a chromium repository setup where you can install and update Chromium using apt-get and referring to it as chromium-browser, but that requires setting up the repository using a public key which is not so hard, but definitely not trivial for a non-geek to do.

Since CodeWeavers recompiled Chrome from source for their packaged distribution, it will not automatically update from Google's server, but that is a small price to pay. The current Windows version is 1.0.154.65 and the version that comes bundled from CodeWeavers is Developer Build 21 from Sept 2008. You can actually manually update the files on the Linux installation (in /opt/cxchromium/support/chromium/drive_c/chromium/) with the updated files on your Windows installation (in a user's Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application directory), but now this is starting to sound rather complicated too! And I was trying to say how simple all of this was to do.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BMI & BMR Calculator (Body Mass Index and Basal Metabolic Rate)

Image
My wife has been researching type 2 diabetes and recently checked a book out of the library which included a body mass index (BMI) chart much like the one pictured here. Whereas it is fairly easy to follow, I, of course, think it must be converted to an online calculator! However, when I checked the Internet, there were already a billion of them so I had to make one that was different. So my lovely BMI BMR calculator accepts either inches or centimeters for your height and pounds or kilograms for your weight and calculates not only your BMI, but also your BMR (basal metabolic rate) which determines how many calories you should consume! So I made a spiffy "all in one" healthy body indicator calculator which not only determines how underweight or overweight you are, but also tells you how many calories you should consume to maintain or improve your ideal weight. 
Read more

Trying out the L'Ecole Culinaire Presentation Room restaurant

Image
We had been seeing the ads for the restaurant at L'Ecole Culinaire and since we live so close by we thought we would try it out. We had always enjoyed dining out at cooking or hotel schools like the CHIC in Chicago and the Statler at Cornell where we went to college. Since we still love to go out and eat here in St. Louis , we ventured over to their restaurant on the first day they were open for lunch. The first thing we noticed is that they do not have much parking! They really need to let patrons know where they are supposed to park. The restaurant itself is small but very well attended. There was one fellow who kept straightening all the centerpieces and place settings on the tables, and we always saw one or two student workers milling about. The lunch menu was small and the choices did not appear overly "gourmet". The special of the day was a bison burger stuffed with cheese, and other choices picked by my group included a club sandwich, a "margherita" pi
Read more

Not all Frosted Window Films are the same!

Image
We live in an older home with a lot of issues and one of them concerns our back door to our patio from our sunroom. The door has double paned glass on it, but unfortunately the seal has broken so you can see moisture collect inside of it. We decided the easiest way to "remedy" the problem was to cover the window with some "frosted" film so we did not have to see the moisture condensing between the panes. But the question was, what film? There are a bunch of them available so we had to select something to try on the door. The first place we tried was our nearby Lowe's store which had a bunch of Gila brand film. We selected what seemed like the typical adhesive based door sized  film that cost about $25 after tax. We thought it could not be that hard to put up and look nice on our door. So one day my wife ran out and purchased it at Lowe's and we commenced to install it on our door window. We made our own soapy water solution and followed the directions
Read more