Finally, Chromium works in ubuntu!

Chromium has been available for Linux for a while now, but until recently opening chromium in Ubuntu resulted in a blank browser screen. I just recently updated chromium and at last, it works!

There is still a ways to go, but this is wonderful. Chrome is my favorite browser in Windows and I can't wait for the day Chromium is as functional in Linux as Chrome is in Windows.
It is important to make the distinction between the two. Chromium is an open source browser project and Chrome is Googles browser based on the Chromium project.

Currently Chromium is in alpha and lacks a lot of functionality such as flash support. The welcome page pretty much somes it up, but still this is huge progress and hass me very excited.

To install chromium in ubuntu add the following repositories and replace your version of ubuntu (Gutsy, Hardy, Jaunty etc) for intrepid (unless of course you are running intrepid).

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main

You don't need the deb-src repository unless you want to compile other applications that depend on chromium.

You can add the repository via a gui app such as adept or synaptic or just do it from the command line.

sudo echo "#chromium\ndeb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt-get install chromium

So how does it look?
Here is the welcome page which pretty much sums up the current state of the alpha

 And here is a screen-shot of this website in chromium

And here is a screen-shot of the quicklaunch page that opens when you click the new tab button.

Notice that the pandora.com is basically blank because there is no flash support yet.

Until flash support is added this will not be replacing firefox as my default browser in Linux. That said, chromium opens almost instantly, load pages extremely fast and has very good standards support. I think it will be my default browser for sure as soon as flash support is added.

CSS 2.0 Acid test http://acid2.acidtests.org/#top
CSS 3.0 Acid Test http://acid3.acidtests.org/

Of course if you really want to run the same version of Chrome in Linux that you have for Windows, you can always just run it under Wine.
If you are not familiar with installing application under wine, Codeweavers provides a packaged version of chromium under wine called Crossover Chromium available here http://www.codeweavers.com/services/ports/chromium/

Neither of these will get you flash support however.

Me, I will just wait for flash support in chromium.