Chromium and Widevine:
I prepared packages for you (Slackware 14.1 and -current) for the latest Chromium browser and its optional Widevine plugin. In the Chrome Releases blog you can read the announcement for Chrome/Chromium 41 to the Stable Channel (full version is 41.0.2272.76).
Chromium 41 is a major version upgrade with attention to security and performance. I could not find new functionality that needs mentioning though.
The new packages for my chromium and chromium-widevine-plugin packages both have version 41.0.2272.76 – indicating that they should be used together. The Widevine plugin reports itself as version “1.4.7.771” in chrome://plugins .
You don’t have to install the Widevine plugin. Chromium without Widevine plugin is a pure and open source browser, even the Widevine “adapter module” inside the Chromium package is open source. The Widevine library itself is a closed-source Content Decryption Module (CDM) which therefore is not part of the Chromium package but separately packaged (after extracting it from Google’s binary download of the Chrome browser with the same version number).
Download locations:
- http://www.slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/ (master site)
- http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/people/alien/slackbuilds/ (my own US mirror)
- http://alien.slackbook.org/slackbuilds/ (US)
- http://slackware.org.uk/people/alien/slackbuilds/ (UK)
Note for the curious: Widevine is a Content Decryption Module (CDM) used by Netflix to stream video to your computer in a Chromium browser window. With my chromium and chromium-widevine-plugin packages you no longer need Chrome, or Firefox with Pipelight, to watch Netflix.
Have fun with it! For me, it is bed time after a long working week, and time to bake some good sourdough breads during the weekend. After the weekend I hope to take a look at the new KDE Applications 14.12.3 tarballs and TigerVNC. Considering the promise of sun and high temperatures during the weekend, I would rather spend time walking outside with my wife than spend time alone behind this computer 🙂
Eric
Hi Eric,
Now with this update you can finally stream Netflix in HD.
My current Netflix plan allows up to 720p (3000 kbps) and I now can watch at that resolution instead of 720×480 (1750 kbps).
If anyone wants to know technical details about the Netflix content they are viewing they can press: Ctrl+Alt+Shift+D for debugging output or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S to view streaming rates that are available.
Thanks!
So looks like I jumped the gun a bit.
It does stream in HD but only on certain titles.
Looks promising though.
Thanks Eric! Love the ability to watch Netflix.
Hello,
I just read this:
https://lists.debian.org/debian-kernel/2015/03/msg00133.html
The next release of chromium will drop support for kernels without TSYNC, meaning 3.16 and earlier.
Hi Lems
I do not care much for someone who cries “Julien Tinnes from google says that next releases of chromium will drops support for kernels without TSYNC” without proof to back it up.
Have you looked at avidence? Phoronix.com has a similar article and there they write that Chrome 39+ needs a kernel 3.17 or higher or else apps/extensions will crash (http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Google-Chrome-TSYNC-Kernel)
Well, my Chromium is at version 41 and it works, period.
If indeed a future version of Chromium will require recent kernel versions for the sandbox’s security features, then I will decide to either drop the sandbox or get rid of chromium completely. I am not attached to one or another browser and while I think Chromium is a damn good browser, it is not the only one available to us. If its developers are really arrogant enough to discard the requirements of other distros than ChromeOS, then that arrogance will be paid back in full.
Until now, I have not seen any of it happening so I’ll just keep a close watch on the story.
Hi Eric,
well said. I did not want to upset you, just thought this might be of interest. I read it on a german IT news site, and Ubuntu patched its kernel, so I thought it was kosher. Guess we’ll simply have to wait and see.
lems
Hi lems
No, you did not upset me 😉
It’s just that bug report where someone states “I heard this or that” and everybody starts repeating one another. Fact-finding is very important when trying to stop FUD before it spins out of control.
I am currently compiling chromium-dev (42) on slackware-current to see if anything has changed there.
It looks like there may be a typo on line 451 of your chromium.SlackBuild. You have written “-Duse_system_libxstl” and it should probably be “-Duse_system_libxslt” (the last two characters are transposed).
Hi!
Thanks for your great effort of getting widevine running with chromium. What about ARM though? Do you have any plans on getting this to work on ARM devices, too? I’ve got some raspi 2 and an Odroid C1 that I’d like to use netflix on. 😉 Any chance on making this happen?
Cheers
Hi frank
I just do not have the time to do ARM packages. I would have to spend several weeks, if not months, on getting the hardfloat ARM port in shape. And building software for ARM takes factors longer than for regular x86_64.
You’re welcome to try yourself, and share any compilation errors so I can have a go at finding a fix.
Hi Mike, yes that is a typo indeed.
I have just uploaded a new chromium-dev package, version 43. Accompanied by a new package chromium-dev-widevine-plugin so that you can watch Netflix in the new browser too.
The chromium-dev works independenty from regular chromium. It will also write its configuration into a separate directory (~/.config/chromium-dev).
Is it just me or the translating function does not work?
Hi Eric, Thanks a lot for all your pakages. I have a question and I do not know whether this is something general or not. But when I open chromium, go to another workspace an then come back to the browser its window is not repainted properly; tab-headings etc are not visible etc. This is quite annoying, interface-wise. Do you have an idea what might cause this and how it can be repaired? I have 16 GB or RAM and my swap is empty so having too many things on the go is not the issue as far as I can see.
Hi Rob, no such wweirdness here. You’re not telling anything about what version of Slackware, what DE, what graphics card and what video driver you are using, but my guess it that this is a video driver issue.
Well, I am running 64-current, multi-lib, intel i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor, 16 GB memory, Intel HD Graphics 4000 and XFCE-8.12 as DE. …
You can find a ready to compile TigerVNC 1.4.3 Slackbuild and files on http://partedmagic.com/source/tigervnc/
Regards, Dick
Hi Dick, thanks.
I had some similar files sent to me by another Slackware (John Vogel) privately.
It seems there is demand for a new version of the tigervnc package, I’ll see if I can find the time to do one in a short while.
And good luck with Parted Magic! Terrific tool.