Chromium-based 64-bit packages for Puppy...
 

For anyone who likes Chrome, and the various Chromium-based browsers, I regularly keep three packages up-to-date for the two flagship Pups, Tahr64 and Slacko64.

Chrome itself (packed as 64-bit SFS):-

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/ldgb4g3ytf7by/Current

Help yourselves to the one you need.

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FlashPeak's SlimJet browser ( a brilliant Chrome replacement with lots of built-in privacy stuff, and tabs reminiscent of pre-Australis FireFox): again, packed as 64-bit SFS:-

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/3so...t_SFS_packages

Again, help yourselves. This one's my go-to browser on a daily basis, despite being a Chrome user since day 1.

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And finally, SRWare's Iron browser, which is a dead ringer for Chrome. Identical in looks, it's perhaps a bit lighter on resources than Chrome itself. Again, as 64-bit SFS:-

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/dq2...n_SFS_packages

And again; help yourselves to the one needed.

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The WideVine content decryption modules (required for NetFlix, Hulu, et al) come with Chrome as standard, and have done for some time. Flashpeak only added these (along with h.264 support) to the last, 14-series releases. Iron also comes with the libwidevinecdmadapter.so module, but SRWare recommend that you 'borrow' the libwidevinecdm.so module (the one that actually makes it possible for NetFlix to work) from the current Chrome package.

I've already done this, so all 3 browsers are 'NetFlix-ready'.

Enjoy.


Mike. :hattip:

Might have to check these out, Palemoon is a little slow.

Well, this stuff's all kosher. I can't afford for it not to be; I don't stand to gain anything from dishing up crap/malware/junkware, etc., etc. That's a sure way to lose a reputation for honesty & fair-play on the Puppy forums.....and I've got no intentions of doing that. :doh:

No, you'll find these all work spot-on. I make the packages up for myself, basically; if they behave themselves as they should, then I share. I've used Chrome since day 1 in 2008, but some of the current alternatives are, I find, better. See what you think. :)

PaleMoon is, of course, Mozilla-based.....but it's considerably lighter than FF. Unfortunately, there's no such thing as a truly lightweight browser these days; they're all lumbering supertankers. Unless you try something like QtWeb...


Mike. :hattip:

Thanks for the Browsers
 

Did not know about Slimjet before...nice. Looks like it works with Google cloud so can synch bookmarks etc. Thanks for the contributions. Btw, having the "cannot run Chrome as root" issue with the Tahr64 Chrome SFS - this is the file I downloaded: http://www.mediafire.com/file/37dq9x...amd64-tahr.sfs

Hi, coverdad.

Mm. Looks like my most recent package, that one. You say you're getting the 'can't run as root' warning? Strange. Ever since around version 56, I've been using Iguleder's workaround for convincing Chrome that Puppy is running as a normal user. See here for details, if you're interested:-

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=72667

If you look at the contents of the SFS package, in the /opt/google/chrome directory, you'll see the 'libpuppygc.so' module that Iggy built. Furthermore, if you look at the sym-linked /usr/bin entry in Geany, you'll see the 'LD_PRELOAD' clause at the beginning of the exec line, down the bottom. This is what loads the module in before Chrome fires up, and keeps it happy.

For well over a year now I've been 'beta-testing' each upcoming version as soon as Google release it on the Beta channel.....and this one was behaving itself nicely.

Can you give me a copy'n'paste of the contents of your /usr/bin/google-chrome entry, please? We'll see if we can't suss out what's going on.


Mike. ;)

Chrome follow up
 

Can you give me a copy'n'paste of the contents of your /usr/bin/google-chrome entry, please? We'll see if we can't suss out what's going on.


thanks 4 stayin in touch mike. Can I send to you direct somehow? .... i am not well versed in using forum tools n do not want to clutter it up with my stuff. Chrome on my tarh64 is great but Slimjet seems to work seamlessly so I am going to it as primary browser for Puppy. Again, appreciate your effort providing us "rookies" quality choices. Puppy rules!!

Hi, coverdad.

Well, I haven't sussed out PMs myself yet! I've belonged to a lot of forums and bulletin boards over the years, and they all have a different way of doing things....

However, if you're happy with 'Slimmie', that's entirely up to you. That's the whole point of providing choice.


Mike. ;)

Still more on "root"
 

Hi Mike,

Well I'm down to using Firefox :( Yes Slimjet is now showing the same "will not run as root" kind of msg as Chrome. It ran fine until reboot this morning. Studied the info from Iggy you sent and looked at my google-chrome in text editor (however path to my file is /opt/google/chrome/google-chrome) but did not see any obvious discrepency. But my skills are limited in these areas so cannot be 100% sure bug is not there. I am uninstalling and deleting both browser SFS then will do fresh download/install again. Also, don't know if pertinent but I was running older Chrome version 56 using "no-sandbox" flag work-around prior to install of your tahr64 sfs... uninstalled and deleted the old Chrome sfs. Don't know if there is leftover "debris" though.
Don't have Skype so if ok will communicate via this thread?

Mike,
Got both browsers working fine now. I ended up removing Tahr64 save files and ran a fresh "install" to create new ones. Then installed your sfs files... problem solved. Likely something from previous iterations of Chrome installs may have caused incompatibility??
Thanks for time and help.

FYI the google-chrome file is now in usr/bin dir and has the mods in it. Before resetting the tahrpup it was only a shortcut to opt/Google/chrome/ and when I looked at it with Gearny the mods were not there. Hope that helps in future for any others with similar issue.

Hi again, coverdad.

Mm. Okay; fair enough! TBH, you can usually clear stuff up by deleting the 'google-chrome' directory in /root/.cache and /root/.config (the '.' indicates a 'hidden' directory, and can be accessed by clicking on the 'eye' icon in ROX-Filer. This will cause Chrome to act as though it's just been installed again, and set everything up from scratch.

Google stuff is pretty much self-contained, and tends to have very little in the way of extraneous .conf files and that kind of thing.

Curious to know how you managed to turn the wrapper-script symlink in /usr/bin into the wrapper script proper!. It makes no difference, actually; you can run the wrapper-script from /usr/bin, if you wish. There's no rule that says it has to sit in the Chrome directory.....so long as the script points to the Chrome 'binary', along with whatever 'switches' you've selected, it should run.

Anyway; the main thing is they're running again. (And it never hurts to have a back-up browser (or two!))


Mike. ;)

Hi Mike, new poster and Linux newbie here. I'm having trouble getting Chrome working on my Tahrpup64. I installed from Quickpet first up, and it apparently installed OK but wouldn't launch. No error message. After finding this thread I uninstalled using PPM and downloaded and installed your sfs using the link above. No difference. Tried deleting the .cache and .config directories as suggested above. No difference. Any suggestions where to go from here?

If it helps, I'm able to run Pale Moon, Firefox, Slimjet and Tor ok, but Seamonkey is behaving same as chrome.

@peterjammo:-

Hallo, Peter.

Mm. Chrome operation in Puppy is rather a mish-mash at the moment. As of Chrome 62, Google now point-blank refuses to allow its operation as /root any longer (Big Brother knows best, hah!).....which is the way we've run it in Pup for ages, taking advantage of the 'developer' option which, until recently, meant the ability to run the browser as /root (a loophole we've exploited to the full..!)

Previously, you simply had to specify an alternate location for the 'user' directory - /root/.config. Since Google have now coded in a different way for developers to run the browser as a normal user, we've had no option but to come up with a different way to run it in Pup.

We're now having to run it as the alternate user 'spot', so the entire thing is set-up inside the /root/spot directory. It's under /root, yes (that being Pup's 'home' directory), but with all the permissions chowned to spot:spot instead.

Did you uninstall the first one you installed from Quickpet? You'll need to remove every trace of it from the system first, since Chrome will get confused as to which one you're attempting to run. Remove it via the Puppy Package Manager, then remove the now 'extraneous' /rot/.cache & /root/.config directories.

To be absolutely certain, use pFind (Menu->Filesystem->pFind) to check for 'remnants', and, if necessary, delete them manually. (Pup doesn't have an equivalent to Ubuntu's 'auto-remove'; she's a wee bit more 'hands-on', I'm afraid.)

Then, unload the Chrome SFS you've got loaded. Also, check in ~/spot to make certain the 'hidden' .cache & .config 'google-chrome' directories have been deleted.

Now, re-boot. Make sure you have the current version (Chrome 63.0.3239.84; I'm afraid I don't tend to update every single point release of these, only major new versions), then re-load it in /mnt/home. (You did use /mnt/home previously, I take it?)

Let me know what happens. If you can start it from the terminal with

...and let me have a read-out from that, it would help considerably. (There'll be a fair bit; Chrome is incredibly verbose ('noisy', I call it!) in the terminal, so be prepared for that...)


Mike. ;)

Thanks for the quick and helpful reply.

I'm pretty sure that was the approach I took for removing the original Quickpet try. And yes mnt/home.

Interestingly (or perhaps not) I tried dragging the launch file on to desktop yesterday as someone suggested that may work, with no effect. However today, (no other relevant changes I can think of) clicking that launched Chrome. It then ran for a minute or so before crashing X to a black screen. Tried again with the same result.

I'll have another try following your advice when I get a moment, but since I was trying to get a browser that would run catchup TV channels (drm issues with all Linux browsers??), and I've since been told that Linux Chrome doesn't work either, it's not a big priority. Pale Moon and Firefox covers practically everything else I need.

Thanks again.
Peter

Hallo again, Peter.

We-e-elll.... While that was certainly true in the past, DRM operation in both Chrome and Firefox has been seamless for quite a while now. Chrome has supported DRM playback since ver. 37, and Firefox since ver. 49. The previous problem with not being to watch NetFlix, etc, was entirely down to the websites themselves not supporting playback in the Linux versions of the major browsers.

You could get round the issue by employing an 'agent switcher', and spoofing your browser's 'user agent' to make NetFlix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, et al, believe that you were watching via the Windoze version. But it did entail a lot of what really was totally unnecessary messing about.....for something that should have been available from the start.

Prior to that, there was all the fun'n'games with both both Silverlight & 'Pipelight'. And before you ask.....don't even go there. It was a mess. Pure & simple.

It's called 'market forces', mate; it's only recently, with the obvious fact that more & more folks are turning to Linux, that the websites are starting to realise that this is a largely untapped market (and therefore worthy of being catered to at long last).

I've been doing a wee bit of research into the subject of 'catch-up' TV. Both FireFox and Chrome have various add-ons & extensions that will allow you to do just this.....and most of the major TV providers will allow you to do the same through their own websites. The stinger (as always!) is that this is not a free service. They all, without exception, expect you to pay.

I have no problem with doing this for NetFlix. £6.00 GBP/month for a single-screen basic a/c is, I feel, well worth it. Personally, I wouldn't entertain the idea of paying for 'catch-up' TV since, IMHO, there hasn't been anything really worth watching on UK TV for long enough.....

But to each their own. If this is something you'd like to do, and don't mind a little bit of work to attain it, it's definitely possible to do. I just hope you've got deep pockets..!

Do be aware that in Puppy, this is to a large extent determined by the specific combination of Puppy and/or browser you happen to be using. Some combinations work like a dream. Some just don't want to know.....you need to experiment to find this out for yourself (and also what suits your hardware).


Mike. ;)