Linux Mint re-adds Chromium to its official repositories

[Karlston]

Linux Mint re-adds Chromium to its official repositories

Clem Lefebvre, head of the Linux Mint project, has shared some of the project's developments for October. He announced that the Chromium browser is now available from official repositories on Linux Mint and LMDE after it was previously removed and that the project has started work on an IPTV player.

 

During the development of Linux Mint 20, you may remember that the Linux Mint team was angry about Chromium’s snapd requirement added by Canonical - the maintainers of Ubuntu. In response, it replaced the Chromium package with a dummy package forcing users to download it from other places. To remedy this, the Linux Mint team has decided to begin providing Chromium builds on its own.

 

According to Lefebvre, Chromium takes more than six hours to build on a fast computer so It has allocated a new build server with a Ryzen 9 3900 processor, 128GB RAM, and NMVe to get builds done in just over an hour. With this setup, the Mint team can detect, package, and compile new versions of Chromium in a timely manner.

 

With regards to the new IPTV player, Hypnotix, Lefebvre says the project is still considered to be an early alpha with no translations, a limited interface, and few features. It’s not even clear at this point whether Hypnotix will be part of Linux Mint but the team is enthusiastic about the project and they received good feedback when floating the idea to users last month.

Hypnotix comes pre-configured with FreeIPTV, a free content provider which streams a selection of TV channels. There is no graphical interface yet that allows users to add more content providers but you can add them via the command line with the following command gsettings set org.x.hypnotix providers "['Provider_Name:::https://m3u_url.m3u']" and replacing the provider name and address. If you’d like to try out this very early build of Hypnotix, you can download it here.

 

The Mint team has also added the ability to mark files as favourites by right-clicking on them, this will move them to the top of folders making them easy to find. Favourites can also be accessed from the sidebar. The team has also updated Cinnamon to use Mozjs78 which results in slightly better performance, especially during startup.

 

The last several months of work will culminate around December when Linux Mint 20.1 will be released to the public. Like Linux Mint 20, it will be supported until 2025.

 

 

Linux Mint re-adds Chromium to its official repositories

 

[steven36]

Some people just dont like change if you go out and install deb package  that's your own  fault if you get hacked  or infected the reason Ubuntu ported  Chromium to Snapped  was for the security of there users,  browsers  is the main vector of how malware and ransomware is spread and it avoids Dependency hell.  When you run a Snap, you're running it inside a secured container of its own. It's sandboxed  away from the rest of Linux. Also they done it so they have the latest version faster  for security updates it updates a lot .

 

Also they the other  problem it takes  lots of resources to build Chromium  based browsers  . Many forks are slow at updating for security many Chromium forks are abandon  .Same with  PPA that host debs they slow  at updating so what makes you think Linux Mint will do any better ? They dont have a good security  track record. I hate to tell you  but your better off using  Google or Brave  if  Chromium is your default browser  were you do money transactions if you  dont have snapped Chromium and use Linux Mint  .

 

Firefox is different not all there  updates are security so Ubuntu  and Linux Mint only  gives updates for security. Mozillia  has there own PPA  were you can add they build it if you want updates faster . Just like Google  and Brave build  there own packages.

 

  Linux Mint has a history  of doing stupid things . Like holding back security updates , they use to think updating the Linux Kernel wasn't really important , not updating there sites  to https and getting supply chain hacked .This was just a few years back and was the main reason I switch to Ubuntu . Here they are again putting people at risk because of there own stupid tinfoil hat wearing beliefs . If they dont trust Ubuntu services  why do they leech most of there OS from Ubuntu?  They  should make there OS only based on Debian and watch there user base decline  . More modern day hypocrisy were some bottom feeders bites the hand that feeds them!!  The reason people use Linux is freedom to use a open system  and install what ever  they want when Distro Maintainers try and block users from using certain software,  that is mimicking closed ecosystems such as  apple the very thing  we want to avoid  .If i wanted someone to make software choices for me  i would just buy a Mac  or  use Windows. 

 

As far as Hypnotix Kodi already  has were you can add your  own sources  by just installing a addon that lets you do  it i been doing it for  years  also  VLC lets you  add your own sources .