Hands on: Google Chromium browser alpha for Linux

When Google's Chrome web browser debuted with much fanfare last year, it was Windows-only and not cross-platform compatible. The developers soon began working on Linux and Mac OS X ports of the browser's underlying open source Chromium code base. These ports are beginning to mature and could soon be ready for regular users.

We took a look at the Mac OS X port of Chromium a few months ago, but the Linux port was still barely functional at the time. A lot of progress has been made since then and the Linux version is now in the alpha stage. We tested it on Ubuntu 9.04 to see how it compares with the latest release of Chrome for Windows. There are still missing features and lots of rendering bugs, but it is clearly moving in the right direction.

Early challenges

When the Linux porting effort first began, the Chromium developers were not certain how to best translate their user interface vision to the Linux platform. The diversity of the Linux desktop development ecosystem and the lack of universal consensus around a single toolkit or API can make the platform seem like an intimidating target for third-party application developers. Committing to any single toolkit could potentially marginalize other segments of the community, so it's not a decision that can be made easily.

In an early discussion thread about the strategy for porting the Chrome user interface to Windows, Google Chrome developer Ben Goodger expressed frustration with Linux user interface toolkits and commented that the platform's lack of consistency makes it difficult to know what to target.

In an update that was posted a month after the initial discussion, Chrome developer Evan Martin described the Linux port as a "511MB executable that brings up an empty window."

"First of all let me generally comment that this entire situation is a clusterf*ck. I am not happy with the technical constraints imposed by Linux and its assorted UIs on Chrome's UI and feature set," he wrote. "There isn't dominant consensus around toolkit and HIG, there seems to be variance in commonly used software as to how it's constructed and what it matches, and I've not heard anyone glow about how they can create the coolest looking UIs with GTK."

For those who are unaware, Ben Goodger is a former employee of Mozilla and used to be the lead developer of the Firefox project. In his work on the Chrome browser he is drawing from his extensive experiences with the Firefox codebase. In his comment in the discussion thread, he suggests that Mozilla's approach--where a single user interface toolkit is made to reflect the native look and feel of each platform--is always going to produce imperfect results.

After extensive discussion, the Chromium developers decided to build the Linux port with GTK+, the toolkit that is used by the popular GNOME desktop environment. This will eventually make it look and feel somewhat native on GNOME-based Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu.

Progress was initially very slow. In an update that was posted a month after the initial discussion, Chrome developer Evan Martin described the Linux port as a "511MB executable that brings up an empty window." The pace picked up, however, and the browser eventually began to take shape.

Since the beginning, the Linux port shipped with an ominous startup message which declared that "This browser is not ready yet!" This warning was accompanied by messages that encouraged users to refrain from blogging about the software and to resist the urge to file bug reports. This message has been removed in trunk, replaced by a message which informs users that they are using an alpha build.

Chromium alpha on Linux

The latest alpha build of Chromium provides basic browsing functionality and a few of Chrome's other features. I was able to load pages, open new tabs and windows, use the browser's full-page zoom, download files, view and manage history, and run the Incognito privacy mode.

The rest of the features were only partially implemented. It is possible to reorder tabs in each window, but you can't snap out a tab yet or move tabs between windows. Bookmarking basically works, but with several limitations. Clicking on the bookmark star icon doesn't pop out the bookmark editing bubble. The bookmark manager is also not implemented yet. Users can, however, toggle the visibility of the bookmark bar and edit its contents.