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How to Install Google Chrome in Linux with Wine

on August 2, 2011 in Tech for Life

A lot of Linux users and Mac users were left out with yesterday’s Google Chrome release. Chrome is Google’s own browser that packs a lot of technical advancements under the hood and is competing headlong with the heavyweights such as Firefox, Safari, etc.

Now, even Linux users can now run Google Chrome with Wine. Thanks to My Science is Better, who has figured out how to run Google Chrome on Linux using Wine.

Install Google Chrome in Linux

I tried this on my OpenSUSE 11.0 machine with some success. Here are the steps involved

  1. Make sure you have wine >= 1.1.3 installed (look for wine snapshot)
    wine –version
  2. Download winetricks and install it (remove the space in w get)
    w get http://www.kegel.com/wine/winetricks
    sudo cp winetricks /usr/sbin
  3. Install some dependencies for Chrome
    winetricks riched20 riched30 (mandatory)
    winetricks flash allfonts (optional)
  4. Download Chrome installer (remove the space in w get)
    w get http://gpdl.google.com/chrome/install/149.27/chrome_installer.exe
  5. Install Chrome – choose to create a desktop icon
    wine chrome_installer.exe
  6. Now, go to Desktop icon and choose properties and edit it to add the –new-http flag.
    from: env WINEPREFIX=”/home/kar2378/.wine” wine “C:\windows\profiles\kar2378\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe”
    to: env WINEPREFIX=”/home/kar2378/.wine” wine “C:\windows\profiles\kar2378\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe” –new-http –in-process-plugins
  7. Startup Google Chrome from your desktop and enjoy!

Issues running Chrome in OpenSUSE

You might not encounter this but just a heads up on things I encountered in OpenSUSE. The installer didn’t prompt me with much options although I got the ‘Start Chrome’ message and the desktop icon had installed. After I changed the command as above, Google Chrome started.


I am yet to get proxy working on it to get on the Internet and will update the post once I do it. Some of the icons you see on my desktop run on Mozilla Prism.

Portable Google Chrome

Within days of it’s release, Google Chrome is now available in portable format (english version) . Thank you, Lifehacker.

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14 Responses to “How to Install Google Chrome in Linux with Wine”

  1. John@Marland Real Estate September 4, 2008 at 10:10 pm #

    hey thanks a lot it worked like a charm 🙂

    Johns last blog post..Baltimore Real Estate

  2. K September 5, 2008 at 12:00 pm #

    John, you are welcome!

  3. Rob@money management September 5, 2008 at 11:05 pm #

    Any idea when Google will release chrome for the Mac. I still can’t believe Google put out a product that doesn’t work on an Apple.

    Robs last blog post..The Easy Guide to Money Management

  4. Andrew@Fredericksburg Lawyer September 6, 2008 at 11:23 am #

    You have to wonder why Google didn’t release Linux and Mac versions of Chrome. The launch would’ve been an even bigger success, if they had just waited to have more OS support.

  5. tibor September 9, 2008 at 6:36 pm #

    it did not work on my linux:
    wine ./chrome_installer.exe
    err:setupapi:detect_compression_type cannot open file L”Z:\\home\\tibor\\Downloads\\-r”
    err:setupapi:get_file_size cannot open file L”Z:\\home\\tibor\\Downloads\\-r”
    expand.exe: can’t open input file Z:\home\tibor\Downloads\-r

  6. kouji@haiku poems examples September 11, 2008 at 9:36 pm #

    i don’t use linux (well, except for that time my hard drive conked out, forcing me to use puppy linux for a while), but that portable version looks promising, for someone like me who finds himself having to access files and sites from internet cafes much too often. thanks for the heads up.

    koujis last blog post..haiku poem: conversation

  7. Google Chrome Board September 15, 2008 at 12:12 pm #

    Thanks, great tutorial, easy to follow, even for those who don’t really know how to use WINE.

  8. Nihar September 22, 2008 at 4:39 am #

    Thanks for this post. I can also try this to see how google chrome works on my linux desktop at home…

  9. ANKIT September 24, 2008 at 7:08 am #

    can we have just names without the summary of the comments similar to the LastHalo?

  10. gvan39 January 31, 2009 at 7:42 am #

    Great tutorial…. but I can’t install Chrome. Link to: ” http://gpdl.google.com/chrome/install/149.27/chrome_installer.exe” give me “link not found” !!!
    Where can I find chrome_installer.exe ?
    Newer version give me also error…
    Thank’s for answer

  11. chrome story February 27, 2009 at 7:00 am #

    http://gpdl.google.com/chrome/install/149.27/chrome_installer.exe gives me a 404 error … 🙁

  12. kevin frye August 20, 2009 at 7:56 pm #

    I don’t know if it’s because I have a AMD64 but I get the following error:
    wine: could not load L”C:\\windows\\system32\\chrome_installer.exe”: Module not found
    Any thing to help me out?

  13. resume writing September 28, 2011 at 2:45 pm #

    what a great post! thanks  a lot for sharing with us) 

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