A while back, I came across a tech-talk about Batarang.  According to the video, I had to have Canary because the tool depended on features that were not available in the stable release of Chrome.  To spoil the story, Batarang is now available via the Chrome Store and works fine on Chrome.  But, this is my story on searching for Canary for Linux.

What I found was that Canary was not feasible on Linux.  The best alternative was to install the “daily” release of Chromium.  Because I use Chrome as my day-to-day browser, Chromium works great as a development browser.  They can exist side by side without conflicting.

The Chromium-Daily Repository

My first attempt was to use this chromium-daily repository.  I’ll save you some time: it’s out of date.  Skip on down to the next section.  The only reason that I included this is to point out that it would be great if someone could pick it up to make it active again.

Here’s the install instructions to add the repository and install the browser:

 sudo add-apt-repository ppa:chromium-daily
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install chromium-browser

I get these error messages:

W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu/dists/precise/main/source/Sources 404 Not Found

W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu/dists/precise/main/binary-amd64/Packages 404 Not Found

W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu/dists/precise/main/binary-i386/Packages 404 Not Found

E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

To remove the PPA, I used this:

sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/*chromium*

Chromium Continuous Build Website

So, I found this website:  Chromium Continuous Build.  It apparently keeps a daily build out there.  I just had to download it and unzip it on my drive.

I created a directory to put it in (~/bin/chromium).  Then, I wrote this script to download the latest version:

#!/bin/sh

wget http://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/chromium-browser-continuous/Linux_x64/LAST_CHANGE
LAST_BUILD_ID=`cat LAST_CHANGE`
echo "Last Update ID: $LAST_BUILD_ID"
wget http://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/chromium-browser-continuous/Linux_x64/$LAST_BUILD_ID/chrome-linux.zip
unzip chrome-linux.zip

Then, I ran the chrome binary.  This is the version it downloaded:

The cool part is that it is separate from my main chrome browser because it is chromium, and my main browser is chrome.

Batarang

To download the Batarang extension, I ran this:

git clone git://github.com/angular/angularjs-batarang

After it was downloaded, I went to Chrome Extensions:

chrome://chrome/extensions/

Then, I checked the Developer Mode:

Next, I clicked Load Unpacked Extension:

I chose the directory:

That installed the extension.  I went to my site with Angular installed.  I used Ctrl+Shift+J to open the console.  And, there it was:

Resources

• Launchpad: Chromium – Daily Builds
• Ask Ubuntu: Where are the daily builds for Chromium for 12.04?

Netflix has caught my interest here recently. We were on vacation, and a relative wanted to use my laptop with his Netflix account. I was forced to reboot into Windows to make it work.

Here recently, I have heard some buzz about how that may change. Netflix appears to be pushing to move from Silverlight to HTML5. The big deal is that Silverlight will never work on Linux at least with respect to the DRM required by NetFlix. HTML5 is already built into Chrome already on Linux.

The latest update I have heard is that a plugin exists right now on some of the Chromebooks, but it doesn’t seem active, yet. So, it’s not here yet, but it seems close.

You can read my sources here:

• Chrome Story: Samsung Chromebook Gets Netflix Plugin
• The Chrome Source: Netflix Plug-in Appears on the Samsung Series 5 Chromebook
• Google Groups: Chromebook Central: Netflix

The cool part about Google’s technology is that even if you don’t use it, it sends ripples through the industry. I think that is the case here. I don’t think Chromebooks will meet my needs as a developer any time soon, but the technology they are bringing to my laptop is very nice.

I just noticed in the release notes for Chrome the mention of Web GL .  So, I looked up some instructions to enable it.

I am running Ubuntu Linux, and I installed Chrome from the Deb package.  It created a shortcut in my Applications Menu.  So, I went to the menu editor, and edited the shortcut for Chrome.  I changed the shortcut from this:

/opt/google/chrome/google-chrome %U

to this:

/opt/google/chrome/google-chrome –enable-webgl %U

When I first started this post, the examples that I found didn’t work.  But, when I tried tonight, this example actually worked.

Resources

• Chrome Release Notes
• Instructions for Enabling
• Wikipedia: WebGL

I got Google Chrome for Linux!  From one of those ad links at the top of GMail, I clicked through to Chrome, and found out that they have a version that works for Linux.  I am actually using it now for this post.

First, they have a place you can enter your email address for notification when the full version comes out.  Currently, it is under development.

http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/linux.html

From, that page, you will find a link to the Early Access Release Channels, which has the links to downloading Chrome.  If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, you will find the link to the deb package that you can install.

The other day I found that PlayOnLinux now has a script to install Chrome.  It works for me, but the main problem I have is that it doesn’t support https.

Resources

• Chrome in Wine Apps Database
• Run Google Chrome in Ubuntu with Wine
• Any Luck Running Google Chrome on Wine?
• Wine Prefixes
• Chromium Project
• Build Instructions for Linux