Ubuntu 20.10 PI4 & Firefox / Chromium

[andreask0]

Firefox comes preinstalled, but is slow and produces errors on youtube playback (you can see them by starting firefrox from a terminal). Chromium is per default installed via snap (even a sudo apt install chromium only installs a snap shim). And Chromium-snap also produces errors (you can also see this with starting chromium via a terminal), and it does not do any hardware-acceleration. Chromium-snap 1st startup is abysmally slow (took approx. 1 minute ! on my pi4 8GB).

Here is what worked for me to get rid of the errors and to accelerate youtube playback performance a bit:
sudo snap install core # to remove snap-installed chromium's canberra* errors
sudo apt install ubuntu-restricted-extras ffmpeg # for media playback
+ restarting seem to result in chromium even showing a bit of hardware-acceleration in about://gpu

Here is how I got a native .deb Chromium to work:
sudo snap remove chromium # get rid of the snap Chromium
# download the following 7 .deb packages mentioned by https://packages.debian.org/hu/sid/chromium:
# https://packages.debian.org/hu/arm64/si ... m/download
# https://packages.debian.org/hu/arm64/si ... n/download
# https://packages.debian.org/hu/arm64/si ... r/download
# https://packages.debian.org/hu/arm64/si ... n/download
# https://packages.debian.org/hu/arm64/si ... x/download
# https://packages.debian.org/hu/arm64/si ... o/download
# https://packages.debian.org/hu/arm64/si ... 3/download
# then do a sudo apt install ./<package1> ./<package2> .... with all the 7 downloaded packages
For me this now has a fast Chromium startup, apparently this Chromium is now fully hardware-accelerated, and has a nice youtube playback.
There are still some stderr-out errors produced by this Chromium, which would be nice if we can fix/remove these (will se if I can do this later).
Update: you might better use the install via the raspi deb packages from the post of @thatchunkylad198966 below! It works fine for me - 720p playback with no dropped frames and approx 40% CPU (even though e.g. I also did the RealVNC mixed armhf/arm64 install from the deb packages previously). But it also still shows the stderr-output errors.

Update: for youtube sound playback via HDMI (default Ubuntu 20.10 plays through the 3.5mm jack) https://itsfoss.com/how-to-fix-no-sound ... in-ubuntu/ helped me.

Please note that my linux skills are not that great, take you usual precautions. But at least this is what worked for me. Feedback welcome,
Andy

[thatchunkylad198966]

Or, you could; add this deb:

deb http://loboris.eu/raspi_repo/ raspi main in /etc/apt/sources.list

add the key for it to work:

wget -O - http://loboris.eu/raspi_repo/lobo-raspi-key.gpg | sudo apt-key add -

sudo apt update -y

sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends chromium

Now you have Chromium installed with hardware acceleration. and it updates with the rest of your system instead of using .deb files.

Oh -- and of course it's not using snap!

[andreask0]

Or, you could; add this deb:

deb http://loboris.eu/raspi_repo/ raspi main in /etc/apt/sources.list

add the key for it to work:

wget -O - http://loboris.eu/raspi_repo/lobo-raspi-key.gpg | sudo apt-key add -

sudo apt update -y

sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends chromium

Now you have Chromium installed with hardware acceleration. and it updates with the rest of your system instead of using .deb files.

Oh -- and of course it's not using snap!

Worked perfectly, thanks (I apt purge .... uninstalled my downloaded packages)!

Small clarification for me as a newby which might also help others like me - the line to add to /etc/apt/sources.list is: "deb http://loboris.eu/raspi_repo/ raspi main" (not just the URL, which I initially did)

[soma72]

Thanks this made a significant difference in load times. Here's one more way from someone with basic skills.

Code: Select all

$ mkdir Chromium
$ cd Chromium
$ nano MultipleDownloads.txt

Paste the following URLs for US download site into the new MultipleDownloads.txt file.

Code: Select all

http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/c/chromium/chromium_83.0.4103.116-3.1_arm64.deb
http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/c/chromium/chromium-common_83.0.4103.116-3.1_arm64.deb
http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/c/chromium/chromium-driver_83.0.4103.116-3.1_arm64.deb
http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/c/chromium/chromium-l10n_83.0.4103.116-3.1_all.deb
http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/c/chromium/chromium-sandbox_83.0.4103.116-3.1_arm64.deb
http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/libj/libjpeg-turbo/libjpeg62-turbo_2.0.5-1.1_arm64.deb
http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/libw/libwebp/libwebpmux3_0.6.1-2+b1_arm64.deb

Write out, enter, Exit

Code: Select all

$ wget --input-file=MultipleDownloads.txt
$ sudo dpkg -i *.deb
$ sudo apt-get install -f

Now should have working Chromium app.

[andreask0]

Thanks this made a significant difference in load times. Here's one more way from someone with basic skills.

Code: Select all

$ mkdir Chromium
$ cd Chromium
$ nano MultipleDownloads.txt

Paste the following URLs for US download site into the new MultipleDownloads.txt file.

Code: Select all

http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/c/chromium/chromium_83.0.4103.116-3.1_arm64.deb
http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/c/chromium/chromium-common_83.0.4103.116-3.1_arm64.deb
http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/c/chromium/chromium-driver_83.0.4103.116-3.1_arm64.deb
http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/c/chromium/chromium-l10n_83.0.4103.116-3.1_all.deb
http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/c/chromium/chromium-sandbox_83.0.4103.116-3.1_arm64.deb
http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/libj/libjpeg-turbo/libjpeg62-turbo_2.0.5-1.1_arm64.deb
http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/libw/libwebp/libwebpmux3_0.6.1-2+b1_arm64.deb

Write out, enter, Exit

Code: Select all

$ wget --input-file=MultipleDownloads.txt
$ sudo dpkg -i *.deb
$ sudo apt-get install -f

Now should have working Chromium app.

Thanks, however the install via the raspi deb packages from the post of @thatchunkylad198966 above actually seems a better way, because it will auto-update the Chromium packages too. I just apt purge ... + autoremove uninstalled the manually installed .deb packages and then followed his instructions.