Howto: Chromium Browser On Linux With Flash

Published on August 10, 2009 in Apps, General by Rami Taibah

Chromium is the Open Source project behind Google’s browser Chrome. It aims to build a safer, faster, and more stable way for all  users to experience the web. Indeed as I type this on Chromium on an Ubuntu laptop, I can truly feel the speed. While Chromium on Linux is still in the pre-release stage, it does seem very stable, and could very well be a backup browser to Firefox if not completely replace it.

Around last year, we jumped through hoops by means of Wine and Codeweavers to get Chromium up and running on Linux (and Mac.) Luckily things have evolved since last year; today we have a daily build of Chromium on Linux, and Ubuntu even has its own PPA!

If you ever ventured into the Chromium territory on Linux, you will probably be disappointed that Flash doesn’t work straight out of the box. However, a very simple hack will solve that and make Chromium a usable browser (we are praying for the day Adobe Flash dies, but thats another issue.)

Chromium-Linux-Flash

If you are on Ubuntu, you should just use the PPA. While other distros will probably different ways to get the daily builds (Google is a friend). However getting Flash to work would probably be the same across the board.

Installing Chromium

If you never added software from a PPA, here is what you should do to get Chromium:

Add these two lines to your /etc/apt/sources.list:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu YOUR_UBUNTU_VERSION_HERE main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu YOUR_UBUNTU_VERSION_HERE main

You may want to add the corresponding GPG key to your apt keyring (Note these flags have two “-”, for some reason WordPress is rendering only one).
sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 4E5E17B5

Update:
sudo apt-get update

Install:
sudo apt-get install chromium-browser

Getting Flash To Work

Now to get Flash running, we basically need to create a symbolic link of libflashplayer.so in the Chromium plugin folder:
cd /usr/lib/chromium-browser/plugins
sudo ln -s ../../flashplugin-installer/libflashplayer.so

One final step is to change the execution command to your Chromium icon to this (Note these flags have two “-”, for some reason WordPress is rendering only one):
chromium-browser --enable-plugins --enable-greasemonkey --enable-user-scripts --enable-extensions

Thats it! If you face any problems, just leave a comment or @rtaibah on Twitter :)

Update: Chromium also integerates very well with GNOME, just go to options menu >Personal Stuff > Set To GTK Theme OR even get more themes

About Rami Taibah

Rami Taibah the founder of The Linuxologist and a self proclaimed geek and Linux aficionado. This fall, he will be pursuing an MIMS degree at UC Berkeley, California. You can follow him on Twitter @rtaibah.

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  • Flash still does not work after following your how-to. I've restarted the browser repeatedly and it still wont work. I'm using Xubuntu 10.04 with all updates applied.
  • Brittany, this is an old guide. Almost a year old. I believe that Flash works out of the box right now....Did you try Chrome? Does it work under Firefox?
  • Good howto, but why would you want flash to die? I think flash is the lesser of two evils, silverlight by M$ being the worst. Yes it would be nice if all the web was OGG THEORA and with firefox 3.5 that is more possible, but for now flash is better than silverlight or any M$ ip crap.
  • shawn
    i can confirm this works with one exception, when linking the libflashplayer.so you should use this if it's not in the directory he gave you (/usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/):

    sudo ln -s /usr/lib/adobe-flashplugin/libflashplayer.so

    of course, if you're running 64-bit distro then it will be /usr/lib64/adobe-flashplugin/libflashplayer.so
  • jokerejoker
  • I've been using Chromium from the Ubuntu PPA for over a while. I tried enabling plugins so flash would run and ended up making Chromium my default browser. Not perfect but very usable and promising. When I rarely need a fall back I use Epiphany.
  • Kar
    There is a typo in the command above. It should be --recv-key and not --recv-keys.

    This worked for me.
    sudo apt-key adv -–recv-key -–keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 4E5E17B5

    After installation, I am getting a breakpoint trap error. Perhaps this nightly build isn't stable. Hope tomorrow's is.
  • Name
    Note that since Chromium isn't yet available in native 64-bit form, if you're using amd64, you'll need to download 32-bit flash directly from adobe's site, extract the tarball, and copy libflashplayer.so to /usr/lib/chromium-browser/plugins to get flash to work.
  • malarie
    Hmm..

    malarie@malarie-laptop:/home/malarie# sudo apt-key adv –recv-keys –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 4E5E17B5
    Executing: gpg --ignore-time-conflict --no-options --no-default-keyring --secret-keyring /etc/apt/secring.gpg --trustdb-name /etc/apt/trustdb.gpg --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg –recv-keys –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 4E5E17B5
    usage: gpg [options] [filename]
  • For some reason dashies aren't being rendered properly. Make sure each flag has a "--" (two dashes) NOT one
  • I attempted with two dashes and still get a syntax error with hardy. sudo apt-key adv -–recv-keys -–keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 4E5E17B5
    Executing: gpg --ignore-time-conflict --no-options --no-default-keyring --secret-keyring /etc/apt/secring.gpg --trustdb-name /etc/apt/trustdb.gpg --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg -–recv-keys -–keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 4E5E17B5
    gpg: Invalid option "-–recv-keys"
  • wil2197
    did everything to the letter. All efforts to get flash working failed here.
  • davidbanham
    Could it be an issue with your command line arguments in the launcher? First time around I tried pasting what was here, then adding another dash. Turns out whatever is screwing up the double dash is turning it from two short dashes into one long dash. Anyway, go and have another look at the launcher parameters and sort out the dashes.

    You'll know your arguments are right when you see a page warning you about the fact that flash is in beta and telling you that chromium is not chrome.
  • davidbanham
    I think that second paragraph above is inaccurate. Please disregard.
  • wil2197
    did what you say, and says the browser opens up saying the link is broken. I'll throw in the towel at this point. It just still isn't perfect, but I'll admit it's fast. Just can't use it with flash.
  • davidbanham
    This is brilliant. Blows Shiretoko out of the water. Only strange issue is that it gets sent to the back of all windows any time I middle click on a URL.
  • Ya in many cases it does. Though I am still finding some glitches. For example, I still cannot follow anybody on Twitter when I click on the follow button. Also cannot login to Facebook, I get a security warning. I need to look into these.
  • Hi, running
    cd /usr/lib/chromium-browser/plugins
    sudo ln -s ../../flashplugin-installer/libflashplayer.so
    is no longer necessary; Chromium automatically loads Firefox's plugins.
  • I am not sure about that, I tried that yesterday it didn't work. Unless today's build fixed the issue....
  • wiebelhaus
    I posted this yesterday on the msgboard , what a coincidence.
  • Cazares
    What skin of ubuntu are you using?
  • Crashing all the time, when I click a link !
  • Hmmm weird, what are your settings? What distro are you running? It is running perfectly fine with me, been streaming videos, uploading, browsing, everything is fine really....
  • I am using Ubuntu 9.04 and followed your instruction A-Z. Don't know what is happening.
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