Ubuntu – Chromium snap conversion: Command line options

Chrome published a very limited list of command line switches. With Chromium we are more sure. Try to search this list: http://peter.sh/experiments/chromium-command-line-switches/

the --ash-host-window-bounds and --force-device-scale-factor switches looks promising, but you should elaborate on that.

There are several steps to get the very latest chromium-browser package running on Precise Pangolin, but I have succeeded and so should you!

1. Install from PPA:

This PPA is not recommended for general use but worked well on my Precise Pangolin system:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:canonical-chromium-builds/stage
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install chromium-browser

chromium-browser will not work out of the box as you have experienced until a few other issues are attended to...

2. Missing libatomic:

You will see an error when loading chromium-browser from the command line: a missing library libatomic.so.1. You can search for this missing file by using the great utility apt-file:

sudo apt-get install apt-file
apt-file update

(This creates a local index rather than a system one, use sudo apt-file update if you want a system index.)

You will be prompted to download file indices and you should accept this prompt and allow the download. Then search for the missing file:

andrew@ithaca:~$ apt-file search libatomic.so.1
gcc-mozilla: /usr/lib/gcc-mozilla/lib/libatomic.so.1
gcc-mozilla: /usr/lib/gcc-mozilla/lib/libatomic.so.1.0.0
gcc-mozilla: /usr/lib/gcc-mozilla/lib32/libatomic.so.1
gcc-mozilla: /usr/lib/gcc-mozilla/lib32/libatomic.so.1.0.0
andrew@ithaca:~$ 

You can see that it is part of the gcc-mozilla package which you can install as follows:

sudo apt-get install gcc-mozilla

Note that shared libraries are not sourced from the gcc-mozilla installation location as demonstrated here:

andrew@ithaca:~$ ldconfig -v 2>/dev/null | grep -v ^$'\t'
/usr/local/lib:
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu:
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu:
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/mesa-egl:
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/mesa:
/lib32:
/usr/lib32:
/lib:
/usr/lib:
andrew@ithaca:~$

So we add an extra path for chromium-browser with a slight variation of the technique demonstrated by @Renaud:

sudo touch /etc/ld.so.conf.d/chromium-browser.conf
echo "/usr/lib/gcc-mozilla/lib" | sudo tee -a /etc/ld.so.conf.d/chromium-browser.conf
sudo ldconfig

And you will now see the added search path:

andrew@ithaca:~$ ldconfig -v 2>/dev/null | grep -v ^$'\t'
/usr/lib/gcc-mozilla/lib:   <------------- Here!
/usr/local/lib:
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu:
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu:
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/mesa-egl:
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/mesa:
/lib32:
/usr/lib32:
/lib:
/usr/lib:
andrew@ithaca:~$ 

Note: If you try the aptitude build-dep chromium-browser method this step (adding the LD path) will still need to be followed...

But still more errors:

3. Missing libXss.so.1:

You will then get an error message:

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

Once again apt-file will locate the appropriate package:

andrew@ithaca:~$ apt-file search libXss.so.1
libxss1: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXss.so.1
libxss1: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXss.so.1.0.0
libxss1-dbg: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXss.so.1.0.0
andrew@ithaca:~$

And then install this library as follows:

sudo apt-get install libxss1

And that should do it as chromium-browser has no problem finding the library once installed!

4. Running the browser:

Running nicely here:

andrew@ithaca:~$ chromium-browser --version
Chromium 52.0.2743.116 Built on Ubuntu , running on Ubuntu 12.04
andrew@ithaca:~$ 

And the obligatory screenshot:

Click for full sized image....

And have fun :)

References:

• Debian Wiki: apt-file
• SO: How to print the ld(linker) search path