Chromium on Mint 20

fox · July 14, 2020, 07:22:32 AM

Can anyone locate an actual Chromium .deb file to install on Mint 20? I can't believe how difficult Mint has made it to do so. I'm fine with them removing Snaps, and I don't want to install it through a Snap. I also don't want to install it by adding a Debian repository; I figure that's just asking for trouble. Meanwhile, I just installed Chrome, which has a .deb file that installs on Mint. I normally use Firefox, but occasionally something works better in Chromium or Chrome, so I like to have it available.

buster · July 14, 2020, 07:42:47 AM

"Can anyone locate an actual Chromium .deb file to install on Mint 20?"

What if you searched on getting a deb file for Ubuntu? That should work shouldn't it?

fox · July 14, 2020, 09:08:41 AM

Nope. Searching just gets you to a PPA. I don't want to install a PPA on Mint.

ssfc72 · July 14, 2020, 09:52:09 AM

What is wrong with a PPA?

fox · July 14, 2020, 10:05:26 AM

Nothing on Ubuntu, but I don't want it on Mint.

buster · July 14, 2020, 10:40:27 AM

"What is wrong with a PPA?"

You do know that PPA is short for 'Probably a Problematic App'. I mean, everybody knows that!

Jason · July 14, 2020, 02:13:04 PM

I think if you check, you'll find that Chrome setup a PPA for you unknowingly.

Anyway, it looks like the only way to install it now is as a snap or through an unofficial PPA; it's not in the official channels anymore as far as I can tell.

Why are you worried about PPAs in Linux? Just curious.

fox · July 14, 2020, 04:28:25 PM

Chrome was not installed in Mint with a PPA. I downloaded the .deb file and installed it. When I checked in Software Sources, there was no PPA.

Not worried about PPA's in Ubuntu; I have several of them. But I recall reading that PPA's are a Ubuntu thing and there are potential problems with using them in other Debian-based distros - potential conflicts with other stuff in the distros' repositories?

Jason · July 14, 2020, 06:50:51 PM

Quote from: fox on July 14, 2020, 04:28:25 PM
Chrome was not installed in Mint with a PPA. I downloaded the .deb file and installed it. When I checked in Software Sources, there was no PPA.

I downloaded the deb file, too. But I checked again and realized it was an ordinary Chrome repository.

Quote
Not worried about PPA's in Ubuntu; I have several of them. But I recall reading that PPA's are a Ubuntu thing and there are potential problems with using them in other Debian-based distros - potential conflicts with other stuff in the distros' repositories?

Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu so PPAs should work fine in it. I think maybe you're thinking of LMDE which you shouldn't use PPAs in. I'm not even sure if it allows you to do that with a Debian-based distro. But this article points out how PPAs, in general, can harm your system, something which I previously never thought about. As to how often this happens, I have no idea. I guess it would depend on if a newer version of the PPA software upgrades dependencies where other programs need the older version.

With snap packages, you don't have to worry about that.