How to get Google Chromium for the Raspberry Pi

Google Chrome is one of the fastest and most widely used web browsers for desktop computers. Due to some statistics Chrome is used on more than half of all PC’s of the world. Since it is a opensource project, you can get also Chrome for Raspberry Pi’s.

In this tutorial I will show how to install Chromium on a Raspberry Pi.

In fact, Chrome is based on the open source project Chromium. There is even an operating system called Chromium / Chrome OS. This system is installed on many laptops (Chromebooks: US / UK). We can even run this operating system on Raspberry Pi’s (check out reddit), but we can also just install the Chromium web browser on our Pi’s.

Basically there are two options to install it on your Raspberry Pi. As long as you use a Linux distribution (Raspbian Wheezy, etc.) you can use both ways. For beginners or those who are just interested in installing it quickly, the first way is more recommended.

Install Chromium on your Raspberry Pi with apt-get

At first, we have to update our packages. Open a terminal and type in:

sudo apt-get update

Then, you can install it also by using the packet manager:

sudo apt-get install chromium-browser --yes

Alternatively you can install the package chromium-browser instead of chromium.

That’s all! If you are connected through SSH or not using the graphical user interface, you should start (startx). Otherwise you can also establish a remote desktop connection. Now click the start button and navigate to “Internet” where you will find the Chromium shortcut.

As you see, the graphical interface is similar to Google Chrome’s on desktop PC’s:

Install Chromium on Raspberry Pi’s by using git

If you want to compile the Raspberry Pi Chrome (Chromium) Browser yourself, visit their Google Source repository where you can also check the code. The code is not available on GitHub, but that makes no difference for cloning and compiling the repository. But you should know that the files to download are about 15 gigabyte (after installing in fact 22 GB). This is why I recommend the first option, if you only want to install it quickly. If the installation above failed (for any reason) or you want to inspect / change the code, this is how you can do it (you must have a Raspberry Pi Model 2B / 3, because the models before have not 4 kernels):

If you haven’t already installed git, you have to install it first:

sudo apt-get install git

Next, we clone the whole repository to a specific folder, which we create and then go into this directory.

sudo mkdir /opt/chromium
cd /opt/chromium
sudo git clone --depth 1 https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/tools/depot_tools.git

Now you can check out the needed files (about 15 GB). Make sure that your micro SD card (32GB or more) has enough empty disk space.

export PATH=$PATH:/opt/chromium/depot_tools
nice fetch --nohooks --no-history chromium

Depending on your internet speed this step can take a while. After finished downloading all files, you can compile the project.

./build/install-build-deps.sh
gclient runhooks
./build/gyp_chromium -Dcomponent=shared_library -Dfastbuild=1
nice ninja -C out/Release chrome

If you have any problems while compiling it, please visit the chromium website first.

According to Wikipedia the most of the code of Chrome is contained also in Chromium, except of components like the Flash Player.

If you have any questions or ideas, fell free to ask or mention it.