How to install the latest chromium-browser on old Ubuntu releases?

Question

I've encountered a user who alleges that 25.0.1364.160 is the latest version, so I guess that she is still using Ubuntu Lucid (10.04), because chromium-browser is up-to-date in later releases.

To get a recent version, I tried to add the 14.04 LTS repository, and pinned chromium-browser:

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty universe"

cat <<HEREDOC | sudo tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/chromium-browser-pin-400
Package:  *
Pin: release n=trusty
Pin-Priority: 400


Package:  chromium-browser chromium-browser-l10n chromium-codecs-ffmpeg chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra
Pin: release n=trusty
Pin-Priority: 500
HEREDOC

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

I don't have Lucid at hand, so I tested the previous in a 11.10 live CD that I still had lingering around. Unfortunately, installation failed because of unmet dependencies. Before diving even deeper into resolving unmet dependencies, I want to know whether this way of getting the latest chromium-browser is viable.

If not: what is the recommended way of installing the latest stable version of Chromium on an old Ubuntu version?

Solution

11.10 has reached End-Of-Life status, and so won't get any updates from Ubuntu. 10.04 has reached EOL status for the desktop edition, but not for the server edition, so anything that might be used on the desktop but not on the server won't get updated.

If there is any chance that chromium-browser will install, it will be using the packages from Precise, since those have the lowest dependencies (in terms of version number). However, there's a good chance it won't work, since Google increased their minimum requirements a while ago for Chrome (and, by extension, Chromium) to Ubuntu 12.04.

In short, to get the latest Chromium, I would recommend your friend to update to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (which has desktop support for another year, I think) or Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

Correction: Starting with 12.04, the support periods for both the desktop and server versions is 5 years.

Comments

[Rob W]

Thanks for the link to the system requirements, that definitely rules out < 12.04. According to packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=chromium-browser, 13.04 (raring) is currently stuck at version 31.0.1650.63. Would the method in my question be viable for Ubuntu 13.04?

[saiarcot895]

13.04 is EOL as well (It's a little weird, but this is because of policy changes between 12.10 and 13.04). The current supported versions are 12.04 LTS, 12.10, 13.10, and 14.04 LTS.

[saiarcot895]

Main problem (assuming you mean using the package from 13.04 in 10.04): Dependency requirements (13.04 uses newer/different libraries than 10.04), so that won't work. Is there anything preventing the person from upgrading to at least 12.04?

[Rob W]

My previous comment was for future visitors. In case someone is using 13.04 and stumbles upon this question, then they could use my method to upgrade Chromium (which is easier than upgrading a whole OS). I've already suggested the user to upgrade their OS before posting the question. It turns out that upgrading Ubuntu is really the only option, so let that be it. Thanks for your replies!