Much like Android, Chromebooks are considered a different target even though they use the Linux kernel. This release will be for a generic Linux desktop binary rather than specific 1st party systems.

Sure, and when I worked at Google on Chromecast there was also that build of Chromium.

All of that is very different from The G actually providing a packaged official Chrome build, though. Which for some reason they couldn't be bothered to do before (Firefox exists though)

Yeah, strange, there has been a build of CEF for Linux ARM64 since forever.

that's not really "running chrome" but "running that specific DRM part browsers use to play content from companies you shouldn't give your money to"

sudo apt install chromium (or chromium-browser in the past)

It's just about their branded closed build, not even about V8 JIT which was there already.

Wait what, how is glibc patching related to YouTube and Spotify? Could you not watch YouTube using an arm64 build of Chromium or Firefox?

Since the inception of Raspberry Pi at least?

Me too. Trying to get Chrome to run in Docker on an ARM Mac was a battle that I didn't win (I didn't want to fight the battle to start with but I had to use a Mac rather than Linux).

I would have more faith in Raspberry Pi's own patched build of Chromium to do hardware acceleration properly on the Pi than I would have in Google's generic Chrome build.

There's always Firefox.

The reason they didn't release Chrome for arm64 Linux almost certainly wasn't about technical feasibility, but rather about it being worth the support costs.

The Android arm64 Chrome build is clearly worth it to them, as is the Chrome build for ARM Chromebooks.

Before this point they probably didn't think that arm64 Linux was a worthwhile target to support (especially since Chromium was available on arm64 Linux anyways).

I'm not sure what has changed in the desktop/laptop ARM Linux market that changed their minds - or maybe they want to put their shoulder behind that market.

This is "just" about providing the official Chrome binary to ARM64 "desktop" Linux.

You've been able to build and run Chromium on ARM Linux for a long time (I'm running it right now), it's just that they haven't provided an officially branded Chrome.

This is a good thing. While Chromium works well, there are a few things (like syncing) that is a bit of a pain to set up.

they probably meant desktop. i do browser test automation (selenium, vibium), and the lack of google chrome on arm64 trips up new users frequently. the workaround is to just use chromium, but that's a confusing extra step for some if it's not automated and hidden for you.

on that note, it would have been nice if they also clarified if this means they'll be shipping an official "chrome for testing" for arm64 linux, too.

It required custom glibc patches, and getting videoes to work required some kernel stuff as well.

This is a combination of getting stuff merged upstream, and removing the need for some more specialist features.

Maybe Android has its own libc? So they compile it for Android, but not for general Linux.

Also curious about this.

The Chromium project builds many things. The Android version is just one of those things.

What is necessary to run Linux ARM64 binaries on Android ARM64?

To run conda-forge arm64 Linux binaries on Android in termux requires proot-distro because the ABIs are slightly different FWIU.

What is necessary to run Android ARM64 binaries on Linux ARM64?

Android Studio, LineageOS or BlissOS's outdated Android containers, a runtime like vinegarhq/sober that emulates just enough of Android.

An Android binary that makes Linux compatible syscalls only (that doesn't require Android libraries that aren't compiled for Linux) won't work will it?

Chrome had no official arm64 build. There are distro specific builds from debian, fedora etc for arm64 chromium, but google had no official arm64 build.

There were actually some paid services that provided a distro-agnostic chromium arm64 builds mostly targeting people running puppeteer on AWS ARM lambda. You can see some discussion here https://github.com/alixaxel/chrome-aws-lambda/issues/241

edit: I think I replied to the wrong comment.

I thought the same though this comment clarifies it -> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47357608

This one is so frustrating because aarch64 android would work great under kvm, but it's a pain to set up without the NDK cooperating.

What is it like using a Spark as a workstation?