This tutorial is to install the Open Source Chromium browser on Centos 6/RHEL with the Java and Flash plugins, it is for a single user and is installed to a hidden folder in the home directory, with a symlink to /usr/bin/.
If you are having problems with Google-Chrome browser on Linux then you might want to try the Chromium browser offshoot, which is built using the same codebase. It is free of the spyware associated rightly or wrongly with the former so you might feel more comfortable using it.
Chromium browser is very difficult to track down in binary form so I have made the Linux version available below.
This covers installation on Centos 6/RHEL but it should work on pretty much any Linux distro with slight alterations.
I've found this version to be very stable and free from bugs.
We also install Flash and Java plugins which work perfectly.
It's best to have Java and Firefox/Flash installed first, and in that order if possible, so go to these links for relevant info on Java and Firefox/Flash
Firefox is needed because it has the required plugins directory for the lib-flash and lib-java files & others.
After ensuring that you have Firefox installed with the Java and Flash plugins, get the dependencies.
$ sudo yum -y install lsb xdg-utils libXcomposite unzip
$ unzip chrome-linux.zip
$ mv chrome-linux .chrome-linux
$ sudo ln -s /home/<user_name>/.chrome-linux/chrome-wrapper /usr/bin/chrome-wrapper
$ ln -s /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/* . /home/<user_name>/.chrome-linux/
(Ignore 'file exists' make sure to include the dot after *)
The above commands will unzip & hide the chrome-linux folder, create a symlink in /usr/bin and symlink ALL plugins from your Mozilla plugins directory to the Chromium directory.
You could alternatively create a 'bin' folder in your home directory to symlink it to, as in
$ mkdir bin (or /home/<user_name>/bin)
$ sudo ln -s /home/<user_name>/.chrome-linux/chrome-wrapper /home/<user_name>/bin/chrome-wrapper
That's it, run it with
$ chrome-wrapper
Typing 'about:' in the address bar gives you version info
and 'about:plugins' gives plugins info
Users of Fluxbox can put a line in the /home/<user_name>/.fluxbox/keys file
You can also cd to Desktop folder (or anywhere else) and create a symlink shortcut
$ sudo ln -s /usr/bin/chrome-wrapper
They like to move things regularly so feel free to post an update if the link goes dead.
Labels: Centos 6, Chromium Browser, Flash, Java, Mozilla, Open Source, RHEL
