How this Debian Stable user ended up with Google Chrome from Google’s repository

It’s been a long time since I ran the “real” Google Chrome in Linux.

(Update: A new Chromium browser moved into Debian Stable on Jan. 1, 2021. The original post follows.)

I guess I knew that the Chromium web browser — the code from the open-source project that is still coded by Google people but isn’t fully Googled — was very out of date in the Debian Stable repository.

But I didn’t know how bad it was until I started digging. Digging is easy in Debian.

While the rest of the web-browsing world was on version 87, Debian users are stuck with version 83. And that version 83 hasn’t been patched or otherwise updated since July 12. That’s more than six months at this point.

Whenever something’s not right with a Debian package, the place to turn is the bug reports.

There have been problems. Chromium is notoriously hard to package. There are unresolved issues with dependencies. Plus packaging of Chromium for Debian appears to be the responsibility of a one-man army. I’m not even sure if this guy Michael is the maintainer of the package. It doesn’t look like he is. Others are trying to help, but Debian Stable is old, and Chromium needs some other, newer packages in order to run.

It has gotten so bad that Chromium was removed from the Testing repository that is slated to become the next Debian release sometime next year. That could be bad news if the situation isn’t resolved before the “freeze” of Testing in anticipation of Debian 11/Bullseye.

Debian has always done a great job with Firefox. It ships with Debian desktop ISOs, and it is a priority for Debian Developers. Chromium, with its Googly origins, is not.

But many of us need Chromium/Chrome. It’s the IE of the 2020s, and sometimes Firefox doesn’t quite cut it. Like it or not, Google services run better on Chrome. And I use a lot of Google services in my day job. For my non-work browsing, I use Firefox, but when I’m snatching chocolates off the belt and putting them in boxes, it’s all Chromium.

I have Flatpak enabled on my Debian Stable/Buster system, and I thought that might solve my problem. There is a Chromium Flatpak. There is also Ungoogled Chromium, which I just learned exists.

Neither of these Flatpaks would install. The error message said my version of the flatpak package is too old. Debian’s Buster Backports repository has a newer version of flatpak, and I’m already set up for Backports, so I got the new flatpak package.

Chromium and Ungoogled Chromium still wouldn’t install from Flathub.

There were error messages, but I really don’t care about them, so I didn’t write down what they said.

I just need to get this system working with a Chromium web browser that HAS ACTUALLY RECEIVED A SECURITY PATCH IN THE PAST SIX MONTHS.

This is a huge problem.

In many ways, the idea of a never-changing Stable operating system and a constantly changing web browser doesn’t make sense. That’s why Debian ships Firefox ESR (Extended Support Release) instead of “regular” Firefox.

So what did I do about Chromium?

I used the nuclear option. Or in this case the tactical nuclear option. The nuclear option is wiping Debian Stable and installing a Linux distribution that includes an up-to-date Chromium and is committed to keeping it that way.

The tactical nuclear option — for me anyway — is downloading the .deb of Chrome from Google and using dpkg to install it, knowing that the package adds the Google Chrome repository to my sources.list, and now Google is in charge of updating the browser for me.

I’m already logging into Google to sync my bookmarks and other settings, in addition to being logged into Google Apps, so insisting I have Chromium instead of Chrome is nowhere near a hill I need to die on.

I just need a working, secure Chrome/Chromium browser. And now I have one.

I considered moving to Fedora — or even the dreaded CentOS Stream (another topic for another day) — so I could get the up-to-date Chromium that the Fedora Project packages for its own distro as well as the RHEL/CentOS EPEL repo.

(There was a time in the mid-level distant past when Chromium was a problem for Fedora as well. But the distro seems to have it under control now.)

I could also move to Ubuntu, where that distro’s decision to only offer Chromium as a Snap package has been controversial. The decision on Ubuntu’s part was a labor issue. It’s so hard to package Chromium that they can do it once for the Snap and use that on all their Snap-enabled releases.

I could even try Snap in Debian Stable, but how much do I have to do to get a secure version of what for many people is their most important, most used app?

Sometimes things are broken in Debian. Literally it could be a package that doesn’t work. Sometimes it’s philosophical: Is it The Debian Way? That often combines with developer attention or interest — and the lack thereof — to leave a gaping hole in the distro.

For instance, it’s hard to get a working IDE in Debian. That’s why I turned to Flatpak in the first place. It’s the easiest (to me) way to get NetBeans, IntelliJ and Eclipse. Yep, even Eclipse fell out of the Debian repo.

Another think I’ve learned over the past year or so is that while alternative packaging systems like Flathub, Snap and AppImage have their place in the Linux ecosystem, it’s hard to beat traditional Linux packaging (.deb and .rpm).

I have spent a few long periods of time running Debian Stable, just as I have Fedora. Those are the two distros I’ve run the most. They couldn’t be on more opposite ends of the spectrum. Debian stays the same throughout the release, and Fedora changes all the time. You always run into problems in both cases. Not too many problems. I always say there’s about one mid-level problem per year in both distros.

For my time running Debian 10, Chromium is my problem. At least I’ve been able to solve it. You may not agree with using Google’s Chrome repo, but it gets the job done. If I didn’t use any Google services, that would be one thing, but since I use many, this makes the most sense for me right now.

When I finally get around to buying a bigger NVMe SSD drive and reinstalling my operating system, this situation will factor into my choice of Linux distribution. No question about that.

Update: As of Sunday, Dec. 20, 2020, a new Chromium (version 87) is now in Debian Sid/Unstable.

Update: That new Chromium version moved into Stable on Jan. 1, 2021.

Update: The same thing, sort of, happened to me in Debian 11 in late 2022. Now that the Chromium developers (OK, really just Google) have removed the ability to sync bookmarks from the open-source version of the browser, I moved in 2022 to Vivaldi, which is an “enhanced” browser built on Chromium that has a lot of user-focused features added — and which allows bookmark sync.

Anyhow, sometimes Vivaldi doesn’t perform too well. It freezes. Menus won’t open. But usually it’s OK.

I finally installed Chrome from the Flathub Flatpak, and that’s what I’m using now about half the time in Debian 11 (Stable) in early 2023. Today I do have Vivaldi running, but I tend to go back and forth.

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I had to switch from Firefox to Chrome in Windows 10, and I’m not happy about it. Conexant’s horrible audio software and its CPU-grabbing Flow.exe is the problem.

I made the switch from Google Chrome to Firefox at least a year ago, and I thought the Mozilla-coded browser’s performance improvements were enough to allow me to eliminate one spy-ish element from my computing life.

Never mind that I use a lot of Google services, especially in my work life. That’s another issue for another day. I just wanted a privacy-focused browser that doesn’t necessarily phone home everything I do to Mountain View.

But on my HP Envy laptop running Windows 10, I’ve noticed the fan running a lot more, and a look at the Task Manager shows Firefox grabbing a lot of CPU, as does a process that only seems to run (and hog 20 percent of CPU) along with it: flow.exe.

I’ve since learned that flow.exe has something to do with the Conexant sound card in my laptop, and it is running all the time when Firefox is running, supposedly because the Conexant software can’t figure out how to configure itself when presented with whatever it is that Firefox is doing. There was a recent Conexant driver update for this laptop, and I think that’s when the problem began.

I could try to figure this out, try to figure out how to revert the Conexant driver, or something like that, or I could just run Chrome, which sips CPU by comparison, and wait for the situation to somehow resolve itself with fixes by Conexant, HP, Microsoft or Mozilla.

In terms of a fix, I won’t hold my breath. I will keep checking Firefox, which I’m still using on my Fedora laptop. That older HP computer doesn’t have Chrome at all.

That said, here is the best post I’ve seen about how to deal with flow.exe.

My Windows 7 PC at the office doesn’t seem to be affected by this Firefox issue at all, but it’s things like this on the Windows laptop that send me running to Chrome.

Update: I’m going to try this solution.

What I did was go to the Services Control Panel (go to Control Panel and then search for Services) and changed the status of CxMonSvc and CxUtilSvc from automatic to manual. Then I rebooted.

What happened: This worked. Sounds works fine, but no flow.exe and CPU usage is normal.

Update on April 14, 2019: The problem is now worse than ever. Nothing seems to stop Flow.exe when Firefox is running. I’m considering removing the Conexant “smart” audio driver altogether because it’s not smart enough not to bring the laptop to its knees even when I’m not playing any sound whatsoever.

Update later on April 14, 2019: I downloaded the latest Conexant High Definition Audio Driver, Version 9.0.160.51 Rev.D, released by HP on March 22, 2019. It is a 220 MB file. That is very, very large for an audio driver. Most FULL Linux distributions with a full complement of software are under 1 GB. And they include the audio driver.

This means I am NOW using Windows’ Add-Remove Programs to remove the Conexant ISST audio driver. We’ll see what happens.

Uninstalling the driver: When I uninstalled the driver, I rebooted and had no sound.

Installing an older version of the Conexant audio driver: I’m trying an older version of the driver offered by HP: Conexant High-Definition (HD) Audio Driver 9.0.153.0 Rev.C.

Did that work? I am not working this week, so I am not torture-testing web browser. But in limited use, so far I’m not detecting Flow.exe issues with the “old” Conexant driver while running Firefox on Windows 10.

Update on May 6, 2019: I can’t believe that I’m still dealing with this issue five months later. My current “solution,” which I’ve seen a few other successfully try is to rename Flow.exe as _Flow.exe so the Conexant software can’t find it at all.

This is where Flow.exe lives in Windows 10: C:\Program Files\CONEXANT\Flow

My HP update software is nagging me to install a new version of the Conexant sound driver, and when I reboot I get this popup:

Windows and HP really want me to reinstall the Conexant “SmartAudio” driver. I renamed C:\Program Files\CONEXANT\Flow\Flow.exe as C:\Program Files\CONEXANT\Flow\_Flow.exe in order to keep the utility from stressing the CPU while running the Firefox browser in Windows 10.

It’s sad that this has gone on for so many months without anybody fixing it. I guess it says something about the number of Windows 10 users running Firefox, and that thing is that it’s a small number.

Latest on the Windows Subsystem for Linux from InfoWorld

http://www.infoworld.com/article/3204592/linux/get-started-with-the-windows-subsystem-for-linux.html

I upgraded to Fedora 23

I held back from upgrading my laptop to Fedora 23 for longer than I usually wait.

The delay is mostly because this is a true production machine. Aside from the risk of things not working, Fedora upgrades take a long time, and I didn’t want to wait.

I’m not working today, so I started it last night with DNF and let it run. This morning it all works.

I started using Linux on this HP Pavilion g6 laptop in 2013 with Fedora 18 and have been upgrading in place ever since. The upgrade has worked every time.

Despite Fedora not being Debian, I call that stability.

Fedora Packages site at apps.fedoraproject.org/packages is a terrific resource

This is the Fedora Packages page for the xfce4–power-manager package.

The apps.fedoraproject.org is really huge. It’s yet another awe-inspiring reason why Fedora is a Linux distribution you should consider using and the Fedora Project is an entity you might want to get involved in.

The overall Fedora Apps page is a little hard to navigate, with all those spokes, but any time you click on anything, some cool animation ensues, and you are given a preview of the resource you clicked with an offer to go further with more clicks.

I have been led to the excellent Fedora Packages “spoke” through searches for specific packages. It looks great. It works great.

You can search for any package you want and get all the information you need, including links to the same package in other services such as Bugzilla (where bugs are filed), Koji (where packages are built) and more. (Bugzilla and Koji are services I use all the time, so that’s why I mention those and not SCM, Pkgdb and Tagger, links to which are also available for all packages in the distribution.)

Today I’m looking at xfce4-power-manager, which is giving me some trouble (I’m getting shutdowns at about 25 percent of battery power and not the 10 percent I have in the settings). The Fedora Packages page for xfce4-power-manager is a great place to start exploring.

Since web searches are leading to these pages, it’s a great way for users, both current and potential to see how Fedora does things and what it has to offer.

I’m running Fedora 21 with Wayland, and so far (almost) everything is working just fine

I’m running Fedora 21 with GNOME 3.14 and the Wayland display server. Everything is minimized at the moment.

After saying I wouldn’t jump into a Fedora 21 upgrade, I rather quickly had a change of heart and mind, ran a Fedup upgrade and am now running Fedora 21 on my go-to HP Pavilion g6 laptop.

With Wayland.

Yep, one of the new features of the GNOME 3.14-running Fedora 21 is a preview of the next-generation, post-X Window Wayland display manager, and you can choose “GNOME with Wayland” in the login/session manager.

I’m running Wayland right now. I’ve heard the caveat many times: Not all applications will work in Wayland. But so far, every application I’ve tried (Firefox, Gedit, Transmission, FileZilla, VLC, Files/Nautilus, Liferea, Yumex, Google Chrome, Geany, even apps in Wine) has run in Wayland with no trouble.

I’ve been running Fedora 21 for a few days now, spending most of my time in the non-Wayland world of Xfce and GNOME with X, and the system is as solid as ever. And by that I mean pretty damn solid.

The only glitch I’ve had with Wayland has been in suspend/resume, which is pretty touchy anyway with my hardware. (I’ve probably written 50 posts about it since I got this laptop.) When running Wayland, the laptop will suspend and then resume, but I’m seemingly “detached” from my session and have to log in again. At this point I’m logged in twice. This doesn’t happen in X. If this is the only thing I can find wrong with Wayland, I’ll still consider it pretty remarkable.

Just from a “look and feel” perspective, GNOME 3.14 is working better and faster than version 3.10 did in Fedora 20. I’m not saying I’m going to throw Xfce over for it, but the environment is more usable than ever. I moved to the Adiwata Dark theme while still in F20, and everything looks that much better in F21.

As I’ve said since I began running Fedora 18 on this laptop and upgrading via Fedup to each subsequent release, a system as forward-looking as Fedora shouldn’t be anywhere near as stable as it is. It’s a tribute to the developers for Fedora and the many upstream projects that go into the distribution.

Today marks only nine days since Fedora 21 went stable, and my system is running like a well-maintained watch.

So if you think of yourself as the adventurous type, someone who likes everything to be pretty new all the time but doesn’t really want to deal with a lot of breakage and is curious about Wayland in the real world, give Fedora 21 a try.

Later: You know what got fixed in Fedora 21 that was broken in F20? Mounting of Apple iOS 8 devices.

Fedora 20 confession: Now that F21 is out, I’m enjoying the quiet

So I haven’t upgraded my daily-drive Fedora 20 system to Fedora 21, which was released two short days ago.

From what I can see, the RPM Fusion repositories are ready for F21. Google Chrome might break, but a quick removal and reinstall should fix that.

In F21, there will be many changes in the GNOME desktop environment and applications.

But for my go-to desktop environment, Xfce, it’s going to be pretty much the same. (Yes, Xfce is moving glacially slow, and I’ve heard talk of people turning to the GNOME 2-inspired Mate desktop because it’s under heavy development.)

My web browsers (Firefox and Chrome) won’t fall behind. I get the latest versions from Fedora and Google, respectively.

I’m dabbling in Ruby, and F20 has version 2.0. F21 has 2.1, but at the level I’m at, it doesn’t matter.

And now that all the heat is on F21, it’s been relatively quiet, update-wise for F20. It’s a bit closer to running Debian Stable. After awhile you get a few security patches here and there, but updates are quiet and quick.

Even an old (but still supported) Fedora release gets more updates than a current Debian Stable, but for the moment, I’m enjoying the ritual of staring Yumex and seeing either only a few or, better yet, no updates waiting to be installed.

Sure I’ll move to F21. It could be tomorrow (probably not) or next month (you’re getting warm). But what’s the hurry?

Fedora 21 so popular on release day, it’s overloading all things Fedora

Fedora 21 was officially released on Dec. 9, 2014. The Fedora Infrastructure Status page shows red for just about everything.

The screen-grab above shows the status of as many Fedora resources as I could fit in the image (and you can see them all on the Fedora Infrastructure Status page).

Just about everything is overloaded and accompanied by a red “X.”

The reason? Demand for Fedora 21, the project’s first release in at least a year, and the first to offer distinct Workstation, Cloud and Server products.

As the message says, “High traffic due to F21 release, try again later.”

I have been holding back on my own upgrade to F21 on this laptop. I’ve been running Fedora on this computer since F18, upgrading every time with fedup.

Since I rely heavily on this HP Pavilion g6 laptop, I’m going to wait a little while before upgrading to F21 in the hope that as good as the experience may be today, it should be that much better after the many installs and upgrades that are happening today and through the coming weeks.

Note: I learned about the Fedora Infrastructure overload in the LWN.net comments

Update at 2:51 p.m. PST: Almost everything is labeled “Everything seems to be working.”

So I did a Fedora 21 install, and the Anaconda installer was efficient and super quick

I needed to do a bare-metal install of Fedora 21 today, and I used the beta image for the live Xfce Spin.

I didn’t do anything special. The whole disk was devoted to Fedora. I encrypted everything.

It was probably the quickest Linux install I’ve ever done — even quicker than OpenBSD’s excellent text-based installer, where if you go with the defaults you have a working system within minutes.

Sure Ananconda isn’t “linear” like other installers, but once you get used to its “hub and spoke” logic, you can bring up a Fedora system very, very quickly.

As much as I love Debian, whenever I try to do anything complicated with disk partitioning, I run into trouble. Ubuntu’s Ubiquity installer is pretty good, too. But considering the bad press that Fedora/RHEL’s Anaconda installer has gotten over the past few years, once you get to know it, you can do installs very quickly and efficiently.

The Adiwata Global Dark theme is enough to get me using GNOME 3

Here is my Fedora 20 desktop running Files (aka Nautilus), Gedit and GNOME Terminal with the Adiwata Global Dark theme, which is easy to invoke with the GNOME Tweak Tool.

Through the GNOME Tweak Tool, I discovered the GNOME 3 Adiwata Global Dark Theme, which makes GNOME 3 looks so good, I find myself wanting to use it, leaving Xfce aside for the time being.

You select the Global Dark Theme via GNOME Tweak Tool as seen here.

It’s not all sweet darkness. GNOME 3 is GTK3-centric, and since Firefox uses GTK2, it’s not dark.
While there are ways to “force” Firefox to go dark, it’s much easier to find a new Firefox theme. I looked at a bunch and settled on one called Dark Black. Unfortunately, the title bar stays white, but you can’t have everything:

Firefox with the Dark Black theme. Note that the title bar stays in the light Adiwata theme from GNOME 3.

Google Chrome goes its own way, too, and I was able to go to the Chrome themes page and find a few darker choices. I settled for Dark Vibe, and now when using Chrome I’m keeping the darkness of the overall GNOME 3 Dark Theme.

This is Google Chrome with the Dark Vibe theme. It’s dark. Maybe a little too dark to “match” the rest of the GNOME Adiwata Dark theme. I’ll look for something that is not quite so dark.

Later: Thanks to a reader in the comments below, I was introduced to the Htitle extension for Firefox, which makes the glaringly white header bar go away when using GNOME 3 in full-screen (aka maximized) mode. Here’s what Firefox looks like on my system now:

The HTitle Extension for Firefox by Alexander Seleznev makes the top title bar go away if your browser window is maximized. It’s a great way to make Firefox look more integrated with GNOME 3.