How to install Chromium web browser

[bredman]

For any absolute beginners who are looking for something to try out, there is a new guide at http://elinux.org/RPi_Chromium. This guide shows how to install the Chromium web browser on Debian for the Raspberry Pi.

A lot of people report that the Chromium web browser is faster and more reliable than the standard web browser in Debian.

This guide is suitable for people who have never entered a Linux command before. If this is you, please take the time to try it out and post your experiences here. This could be your way to help others move forward.

Also (and very unusually) this guide is also suitable for people who are NOT willing to enter commands in Linux. There is an alternative instruction at the end if you are feeling very timid. Please feel free to check this out and let us know if this instruction works for you.

If you are telling us your good or bad experiences, please let us know what you tried (installing from command line, removing from command line, or alternative without command line). If these instructions pass your test, they will be used as a basis for a general instruction on how to install software.

Please note that I do not have a Raspberry Pi available to test these instructions myself, but I promise that there should be nothing to damage your precious Raspberry Pi.

If any experienced users wish to discuss anything technical, please send me a PM. Please don't discuss technical issues in the Absolute Beginners forum.

[bredman]

In case anybody wonders what inspired me to write this guide, I saw somebody ask the question


Could someone please explain how to do this, in terms that an ABSOLUTE Absolute Beginner can understand?


and the answer (see http://www.raspberrypi.org/for.....ri/#p74793) was as follows


From power on. Log in.

sudo apt-get install chromium-browser

startx

In GUI start->internet->chromium


While the answer was completely correct and much more precise than normal answers, it might not be suitable for absolute beginners. This answer probably took 30 seconds to write, and I thought I could expand it properly in a few minutes. It actually took me 3 hours to expand this answer to be suitable for absolute beginners.

Therefore, please don't be offended if somebody sends you what looks like a short terse reply. It takes a lot of time and effort to answer in all the necessary detail.

[jamesh]

Very accurate and comprehensive.

Only thing I would suggest. Make it less comprehensive! Let me explain. The vast majority of the answer is nothing to do with installing the Chromium browser. Now, I'm not saying it should not be there. I'm saying it needs to be split off in to multiple pages. A page on generic 'getting your Pi up and running', then 'Making sure your network works', both linked from the Chromium page. That way, when someone else comes along to write another guide, they can use those two pages, and save a lot of typing and duplication.

Also, links to pages describing what the command's do would also be useful (e.g. sudo, apt-get etc).

[bredman]

Good suggestions from JamesH. I will do it when I have time for another marathon session. The Bank Holiday is over now.

The best way is to build a set of generic instructions showing one popular piece of software to be installed/uninstalled. Later, the instructions for Chromium will be changed to just point to the generic instructions. Until this is ready, I will leave the current Chromium instructions alone so they can be tested.

Is chromium-browser the best choice of example for the generic instructions? We need to pick an example which is very popular and which contains more than one package.

[Montala]

Thanks to 'bredman' for writing such a comprehensive guide. As he says, this sort of thing always seem to take far longer than you think, but the final result is much appreciated!

Although I haven't actually received my Raspberry Pi yet, I have 'bookmarked' this page, ready for when I do!

[RaTTuS]

the debium images does not come with host installed ...

but apart from that A OK

[MadHorseman]

I tried the process and now have Chromium running on my RasPi VM - nice, clear and just the thing we need here.

However - a couple of minor items spring to mind - if the user has already done "startx" then they will already be in the GUI - a pointer to which Terminal Window to open to input the command would help, (for the brave ones!!).

As for the GUI route - I haven't got the Package Manager installed - I know the  instructions to get that package are on this website somewhere.....!!

I did spend some time on a team developing a training course for ICL S4 Assembler programming, one module being dump-cracking, which required me to write faulty code....and of course one instance did not give the dump results I expected.  I counted this as a learning experience for me too!!!

[greypower]

@madhorseman:

ICL System 4 - going back a "few" years there then!!!

[frying_fish]

MadHorseman said:



As for the GUI route - I haven't got the Package Manager installed - I know the  instructions to get that package are on this website somewhere.....!!


Surely then, to get the package manager (having just looked at the chromium instructions) it would become clear that it is:

sudo apt-get install synaptic

That could however be a sticking point, people trying to go a GUI only route, and not having a package manager there in the first place though.

[MadHorseman]

greypower said:


@madhorseman:

ICL System 4 - going back a "few" years there then!!!



About 1977 I think...!!! And 256Megabytes of RAM - 476 Kilobytes in those days!!

[MadHorseman]

frying_fish said:


MadHorseman said:



As for the GUI route - I haven't got the Package Manager installed – I know the  instructions to get that package are on this website somewhere…..!!


Surely then, to get the package manager (having just looked at the chromium instructions) it would become clear that it is:

sudo apt-get install synaptic

That could however be a sticking point, people trying to go a GUI only route, and not having a package manager there in the first place though.

Thanks – I was about to fire up Ubuntu VM to see what the darn name was…

[frying_fish]

Thankfully I have a couple of machines running various versions of ubuntu lying around in the lab and office. (One is a print server, but can be used as a hotdesk if someone needs a webbrowser and such, another is a general purpose PC in a lab), so I could just open putty and figure it out quickly.

[SN]

greypower said:


@madhorseman:

ICL System 4 – going back a "few" years there then!!!


You sure it was not S3?  System 4 was an old English Electric line whereas S3 was the heart of the Series 39 – off topic, sorry, slap

[bredman]

frying_fish said:


MadHorseman said:



As for the GUI route - I haven't got the Package Manager installed - I know the  instructions to get that package are on this website somewhere.....!!


Surely then, to get the package manager (having just looked at the chromium instructions) it would become clear that it is:

sudo apt-get install synaptic

That could however be a sticking point, people trying to go a GUI only route, and not having a package manager there in the first place though.


I will remove the GUI instructions. It's a bit pointless showing somebody how to avoid the command line if they have to use exactly the same command first. A real chicken-and-egg situation.

I will move the GUI instructions to another wiki page. A lot of people might like to use the graphical package manager to go exploring to see all the software available.

Apologies for this mistake, and the invalid host command also. This is caused by me working from memory without an actual RPi to test upon.

[frying_fish]

I wouldn't worry about apologising too strongly. We have some instructions up there now for people that are less able to work it out than ourselves. So long as something now works it should be good.

Instead of using host, perhaps you could ping an ip address like google.com?

[bredman]

frying_fish said:


Instead of using host, perhaps you could ping an ip address like google.com?


I have now changed to the standard ping command. I used the option '-c 1' which means stop after counting 1 attempt. I thought it might be a bit much to explain how to halt a non-stop ping by using the Ctrl-C key combination. I do my best not to scare the timid too much.

[frying_fish]

Ahh yes, I hadn't thought of that either. It is funny at times what options  you forget about.

[MadHorseman]

SN said:


greypower said:


@madhorseman:

ICL System 4 – going back a "few" years there then!!!


You sure it was not S3?  System 4 was an old English Electric line whereas S3 was the heart of the Series 39 – off topic, sorry, slap



The S4 was ICL's copy of the IBM 360 - the computer centre we used had 1 x 360 & 3 x S4's and was a bit bigger than a football pitch!  The main ICL line was 1900, 2900 etc. The S4 may well have been from English Electric...??

[bredman]

The instructions at http://elinux.org/RPi_Chromium have been greatly improved.

My dumb errors have been fixed and I have added screenshots kindly provided by Tass.

So far, the instructions have been read by over 250 people and I have received only a few comments about errors. Does this mean everybody else has been successful, or does it mean that nobody is willing to try it out?

Let us know if you try to use the instructions. We need feedback, good or bad.

Do the screenshots make you feel more confident?

[Wanders11]

Thanks for the Wiki instructions. I was able to get Chromium up and flying in a few minutes. All my problems/questions came before and after the painless install.

Before: I want a more universally recognized browser (to try and hook others...) and I use Firefox and Chrome extensively, so trying to see what Chromium was and did became issue one. OK...and it works.

After: [insert laughter here] Since there are cell phone apps that will read/write MS Word/Office documents, I thought I would see how Google Documents would behave. I successfully logged in to Google Drive and created both a text document and a spreadsheet, then saved them. Loading them from another machine later found them there and properly formatted. However, it took "more than one attention span". I do not recommend this to anyone with a finite life expectancy - but it did work with Chromium.

[stevep]

I'm not sure that the Chromium browser wil install on Wheezy - it's been a few days since I tried so things may have changed. I'll try again later to see exactly what the error is, as it might be worth adding a footnote to your excellent page just in case someone comes unstuck.

[stevep]

Here's the result using Wheezy:

Code: Select all

steve@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo apt-get install chromium-browser
[sudo] password for steve: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 chromium-browser : Depends: chromium (>= 10) but it is not installable
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
steve@raspberrypi ~ $ 

Not a big deal as I guess that as the Wheezy install matures this will be sorted as a matter of course, but it may help a few people.

[Nburnes]

Here's the result using Wheezy:

Code: Select all

steve@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo apt-get install chromium-browser
[sudo] password for steve: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 chromium-browser : Depends: chromium (>= 10) but it is not installable
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
steve@raspberrypi ~ $ 

Not a big deal as I guess that as the Wheezy install matures this will be sorted as a matter of course, but it may help a few people.

My understanding, Chromium is not available in Wheezy for all Debian branches.

[nickon314]

Yes, confirmed,
It doesn't work for Wheezy. I get the same error to apt-get as the previous poster.

Maybe that needs adding to the wiki too?

Regards

Nick

[ellipsis]

+1