Supporting AARCH64

[sallyhaj]

Hello there,
Thank you for all your efforts in supporting free and open source projects.
Is there a plan to add arm64 (aarch64) support in your project?
I have checked this fork https://github.com/berkley4/ungoogled-chromium-debian/releases and it has only support x86 architecture.

thank you.

[iskunk]

Hi @sallyhaj,

There is no reason why arm64 cannot be supported for ungoogled-chromium, given that Debian already builds regular Chromium for it. It is simply a matter of enabling the platform on the build host.

(Note that we don't have regular Debian builds up and running yet, as that is waiting on #349)

I don't have a lot of background information from users who are on ARM. Could you tell me a bit about what hardware you are running on (RaspberryPi?), and what your view is on Debian's ARM support versus Raspbian?

[sallyhaj]

Thank you @iskunk ,
Yes, I use RaspberryPi 5 as a normal desktop PC, Debian testing with Gnome.
Chromium is available in both Debian and RaspberryPi OS, but no Ungoogled Chromium.
I don't use Raspberry Pi OS, I like to use the main distros only.
Thank you for contribution.

[iskunk]

Thanks, this is good to know. I've been wondering how Debian vs. Raspbian is considered by RaspberryPi users.

I will ensure that ungoogled-chromium, once the release automation is updated, builds for all the platforms Debian supports with its chromium package, including arm64.

[herbsmn]

Hi @iskunk. Any updates on this?

[herbsmn]

I see there are some recent releases of ungoogled-chromium-debian here: https://github.com/berkley4/ungoogled-chromium-debian

Perhaps Berkley would accept a pull request to build their releases for arm64.

[iskunk]

Hi @herbsmn. My apologies for responding so late; this slipped through the cracks.

There's not much to say for an arm64 build, I'm afraid, as we don't even have an amd64 build working. The means by which Debian source packages are produced is in flux, and my understanding is that the project wants to move away from using OBS to produce binaries.

Once we have the process and the infrastructure to build amd64 packages, building arm64 will be a relatively straightforward cross build. But currently, it's not the next step, nor even two steps ahead.

As for @berkley4, I plead ignorance. I don't know the guy. He might be open to such a request...

[herbsmn]

Hello @iskunk. @berkley4 responded here about being willing to add some code to their repo: berkley4#28 (comment)

I'm not knowledgeable enough to know if that is helpful or not.

[iskunk]

For what it's worth, the Debian package of chromium can now be cross-built for arm64 from amd64. So anyone with a PC capable of building Chromium generally can take this on.

I'd suggest keeping an eye on these Debian bugs as well:

https://bugs.debian.org/939406
https://bugs.debian.org/1103025

The best solution will be to have a proper ungoogled-chromium package in Debian, or at least a mostly-ungoogled chromium one.