Chromium for Raspberry Pi BETA

[Hexxeh]

I'm happy to announce that Chromium binaries are now available for you to download and try out. These will ONLY work on Raspbian images, if you're running Squeeze or anything that isn't hardfp, don't even think about it.

Whilst it's not required, using the 224MB memory split, overclocking your Pi and using a fast USB stick or SD card for your root filesystem will improve your browsing experience. I've had the RaspberryPi.org blog frontpage load in as little as 5 seconds by combining all three of these.

Instructions are available here: http://hexxeh.net/?p=328117859

If you've got questions, feel free to post them here. I'd be interested to hear any more performance tips people find.

[alexeames]

Just tried this Hexxeh

It seemed to install fine, but on trying to run it (from cli) it gave me this...
chrome: error while loading shared libraries: libsmime3.so cannot open shared object file. No such file or directory.

I'm running headless, but tried this through terminal in VNC and SSH and both gave the same message.

[Hexxeh]

Just tried this Hexxeh

It seemed to install fine, but on trying to run it (from cli) it gave me this...
chrome: error while loading shared libraries: libsmime3.so cannot open shared object file. No such file or directory.

I'm running headless, but tried this through terminal in VNC and SSH and both gave the same message.

This should be fixed, just updated the scripts. If you don't want to rerun the installer, just run apt-get install -y libnss3

[liz]

Brilliant Hexxeh - I'll have a play when I get a spare minute. Thank you VERY much!

[Hexxeh]

Brilliant Hexxeh - I'll have a play when I get a spare minute. Thank you VERY much!

Glad to be of service, thanks for the early serving of Pi, apologies for it taking so long to get to this point!

[alexeames]

OK cool. That works now Thanks Looks great too. Excellent work.

[Jim Manley]

Hi Hexxeh,

OK, the big question - does it support WebGL and, if not, are you looking at that? I may be able to help if needed, and I have Google at my beck and call just down the road (it's good to know low people in high places ... or was that high people in low places? ).

He waits with sardines on the tip of his tongue - aka "baited" breath

In any case, this is a great achievement and we will show it off at our Raspberry Jam at the Computer History Museum here in Silicon Valley from 1 to 5 PM Pacific Time this Saturday, July 21st. There will very likely be some Google engineers attending, maybe even from the Chromium team - that would be really exciting!

Thanks very much for this effort!

[AmrineA]

Everything downloads correctly. When I attempt to run it I get:

chrome: error while loading shared libraries: libXrender.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory.

I'm assuming I'm missing something that is needed for it to run.

[Hexxeh]

Hi Hexxeh,

OK, the big question - does it support WebGL and, if not, are you looking at that? I may be able to help if needed, and I have Google at my beck and call just down the road (it's good to know low people in high places ... or was that high people in low places? ).

He waits with sardines on the tip of his tongue - aka "baited" breath

In any case, this is a great achievement and we will show it off at our Raspberry Jam at the Computer History Museum here in Silicon Valley from 1 to 5 PM Pacific Time this Saturday, July 21st. There will very likely be some Google engineers attending, maybe even from the Chromium team - that would be really exciting!

Thanks very much for this effort!

I should probably mention I'm currently sat just down the road in said office on said team...

WebGL is a tough one, IMO first we need to see Aura running. Then I'll look at OpenMAX, and then finally WebGL.

I'll pop down to the museum on Saturday, in my calendar now so I don't forget.

[Montala]

Thanks Hexxeh... I am looking forward to trying it out tomorrow!

Keep up the good work!

[AmrineA]

Everything downloads correctly. When I attempt to run it I get:

chrome: error while loading shared libraries: libXrender.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory.

I'm assuming I'm missing something that is needed for it to run.

It looks like the following packages are needed:
libxrender1
libxss1
libgtk2.0-0
libgconf2-4

After installing all of those, I now get:

(chrome: 10627): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:

I'm attempting to run this on a raspbian build that was installed using the network installer.

[Hexxeh]

Everything downloads correctly. When I attempt to run it I get:

chrome: error while loading shared libraries: libXrender.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory.

I'm assuming I'm missing something that is needed for it to run.

It looks like the following packages are needed:
libxrender1
libxss1
libgtk2.0-0
libgconf2-4

After installing all of those, I now get:

(chrome: 10627): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:

I'm attempting to run this on a raspbian build that was installed using the network installer.

Do startx first, then open lxterminal and run "chrome --disable-ipv6" from there.

[ren41]

Just tried this Hexxeh

It seemed to install fine, but on trying to run it (from cli) it gave me this...
chrome: error while loading shared libraries: libsmime3.so cannot open shared object file. No such file or directory.

I'm running headless, but tried this through terminal in VNC and SSH and both gave the same message.

This should be fixed, just updated the scripts. If you don't want to rerun the installer, just run apt-get install -y libnss3

I got this same error, tried to install libnss3 and then get

E: there are problems and -y was used without --force -yes
followed by the original error. i appended --force-yes and downloaded the files, when i next ran chrome -disable-ipv6 I got

(chrome 31821): Gtk -WARNING**: cannot open display:

following your advice to bring up lxde & lxterminal and type chrome -disable-ipv6, Chrome came up, thank you. It is very slow compared to how it is on Squeeze - is there any hope of improving performance?


thanks again

ren

ren

[Hexxeh]

following your advice to bring up lxde & lxterminal and type chrome -disable-ipv6, Chrome came up, thank you. It is very slow compared to how it is on Squeeze - is there any hope of improving performance?

It's pretty fast if you do all the tweaks.

Disable plugins, use --disable-ipv6, use the 224MB memory split and a small overclock on your Pi and most pages shouldn't take more than 10 seconds to load.

[Tritlo]

Works for me! I'm testing it out through a putty/Xming combo, and it launched without a hassle. Nice work!

[Jim Manley]

I should probably mention I'm currently sat just down the road in said office on said team...

Did I miss you identifying your affiliation earlier or was that public before? So, when are we gonna integrate Glass with a Pi? Or, a better question, can we get a Glass device with which to do development? Being a pilot, I have many high-altitude ideas for both the Pi and Glass, but, I couldn't get to IO this year and reserve a Glass device due to a work travel conflict (I was in this dirigible and a bunch of passengers suddenly jumped out over downtown San Francisco ... ).

WebGL is a tough one, IMO first we need to see Aura running. Then I'll look at OpenMAX, and then finally WebGL.

Is this Chromium the Chromebook environment, or Chrome the browser? I can't download and install it on the Pi until I get home very late tonight (technically tomorrow, I guess).

I'll pop down to the museum on Saturday, in my calendar now so I don't forget.

We will be very happy to meet you and will assemble a Wayne-and-Garth style "We're not worthy!" bowing line similar to how they honor Alice Cooper ("Billion ... Dollar Babies ... " )!

[Hexxeh]

I should probably mention I'm currently sat just down the road in said office on said team...

Did I miss you identifying your affiliation earlier or was that public before? So, when are we gonna integrate Glass with a Pi? Or, a better question, can we get a Glass device with which to do development? Being a pilot, I have many high-altitude ideas for both the Pi and Glass, but, I couldn't get to IO this year and reserve a Glass device due to a work travel conflict (I was in this dirigible and a bunch of passengers suddenly jumped out over downtown San Francisco ... ).

WebGL is a tough one, IMO first we need to see Aura running. Then I'll look at OpenMAX, and then finally WebGL.

Is this Chromium the Chromebook environment, or Chrome the browser? I can't download and install it on the Pi until I get home very late tonight (technically tomorrow, I guess).

I'll pop down to the museum on Saturday, in my calendar now so I don't forget.

We will be very happy to meet you and will assemble a Wayne-and-Garth style "We're not worthy!" bowing line similar to how they honor Alice Cooper ("Billion ... Dollar Babies ... " )!

It was public via Twitter, but this particular effort is just something I've been doing in my own time after work.

This is the open-source version of Chrome, the desktop browser. My long-term goal is to get Chromium OS and Aura running, and to get rid of X hopefully.

[Lob0426]

@Hexxeh: you should take him up on the line of groveling. It could be your only chance in a whole lifetime

[Lob0426]

@Hexxeh: I got this error message. Do not know if this is supposed to happen or not.

Chromium cannot be run as root.
Please start Chromium as a normal usere. To run as root, you must specify an alternate --user-data-dir for storage of profile information.

If I have to start this as a NORMAL user then I am sunk, because I definitely am not NORMAL!

I installed it as root JFYI.
EDIT: rebooted and ran it as semi normal user! Seems to run alright. I am using a 128 split, but have a 512MB swap partition (USB HDD). Scrolls through Raspberry pi forums decently fast. It took quite a while to open this first time. I ran it from inside lxde. I used chrome --disable-ipv6 & to start it. opened much faster second time. Good work @Hexxeh.

I had some errors in the terminal behind chromium. Want me to put them in a code window?

[Hexxeh]

Don't install it as root, and don't run it as root. Running web browsers as root is a bad idea. Don't do that.

[Jim Manley]

@Hexxeh: you should take him up on the line of groveling. It could be your only chance in a whole lifetime

Wolfman, I didn't say I would be in the line ... I'm just the organizer and master of ceremonies Shhhhh ... weah hunting wascally wabbits ... heh-heh-heh-heh-heh!

I should let you know that I have two Expert ribbons, both with Silver "E"s, for the .45 and the M-16, and I've gotten perfect 300s on both once (after a lot of practice). You do not want to be downrange from me on a Bad Day at Black Rock ...

Clint Eastwood as the Outlaw Josey Wales: "You a bounty hunter, son?"
Bounty Hunter: "It's a livin'."
OJW: "Dyin' ain't much of a livin'."

Annnnd scene.

Legal disclaimer: Neither Clint Eastwood, the Outlaw Josey Wales, the Bounty Hunter, other very nervous inhabitants of the bar heading for the exits, the barkeep ducking behind the bar, the author of this comment, the original poster, The Raspberry Pi Foundation, or anyone else who may post to this thread condones violence of any kind, against anyone, in any way. Any misperceptions by any reader are solely their opinion and not necessarily those of this station. If this had been an actual emergency, you would have been instructed to tune to your local Emergency Broadcast station. Hope the mods are happy, now. Sheesh

Saturday is going to be a real blast. Hexxeh - how much awareness of the Pi is there within your corner of the Plex? Feel free to spread the word on the Jam to anyone who may not have heard. My friends are all medium-to-high-level folks who may not have their fingers on the pulse of what's being talked about around the filtered water coolers beyond their stomping grounds. I've worked in the hangar where the 757 and 767 are parked (along with the Alphajet and other toys) and marveled at the hot-and-cold-running "crew members" that would embark/disembark at all hours of the day and night

[Jim Manley]

Don't install it as root, and don't run it as root. Running web browsers as root is a bad idea. Don't do that.

Well, it IS supposed to be an educational system ... let the education begin!

[portets]

Does "--ignore-gpu-blacklist --use-gl=egl" have any effect?

[Lob0426]

Yeah I know I am not supposed to run a browser as root, but I forget.

If you make it up here @Jim Manley I will let you play with that M-16's daddy, A LR.308 AP4 from DPMS (An AR10 analog that looks like an overgrown M4 carbine). I can't hit anything with it, but I scare everything within a mile away.

[Hexxeh]

Does "--ignore-gpu-blacklist --use-gl=egl" have any effect?

The bcm_host_init stuff isn't in place, so nope, sadly not.

There are a few ways the lack of accel could be handled, we could hack Chromium to pieces adding in dispman support (which is what I've been trying to do and had little luck). Alternatively, you could do what the teh_orph hack did and just use glGetPixels to copy into an X window, but with Aura/ChromeOS, that's kinda pointless since you're the only application running under X.

Saturday is going to be a real blast. Hexxeh - how much awareness of the Pi is there within your corner of the Plex? Feel free to spread the word on the Jam to anyone who may not have heard. My friends are all medium-to-high-level folks who may not have their fingers on the pulse of what's being talked about around the filtered water coolers beyond their stomping grounds. I've worked in the hangar where the 757 and 767 are parked (along with the Alphajet and other toys) and marveled at the hot-and-cold-running "crew members" that would embark/disembark at all hours of the day and night

A little, getting people interested enough to get them hacking on improving it is difficult though.