Earlier quoted context omitted.
Calling comex a "fawning fanboy"? That's ballsy for a throwaway account.
Wouldn't comex be the "Google" in the comment, rather than the "fanboy"?
comex doesn't work for Google.
Google Chromium drops support for Linux 3.16 and earlier
121–130 of 139 posts
Re: Google Chromium drops support for Linux 3.16 and earlier
#122Most people update the kernel when their distro does. Ubuntu 12.04 LTS is currently at a .5 version with kernel 3.13. There seem to be no plans for a 12.04.6 with a newer kernel but we'll see. Maybe TSYNC can be backported to 3.13 (I'm unsure about who has to do it) or Chromium can be compiled without TSYNC (distro's choice). If nothing happens this is going to cost Google some users but obviously it's their browser…
Ubuntu already backported TSYNC months ago.
Great. I didn't know (actually I didn't know about TSYNC until today). Thank you.
Re: Google Chromium drops support for Linux 3.16 and earlier
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
But do you know who comex is? People sometimes are not exactly precise and sometimes make mistakes too.
But do you know who comex is? I didn't, and it was not that easy to find out, but I was curious. He is Nicholas Allegra and he is known for jailbreaking the iPhone. See http://www.androidbeat.com/2013/04/google-comex/ and http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2011/08/01/meet-co... . He went on to work for Apple and now for Google, apparently on the Chome or Chrome OS teams.
Damn, now honestthrowaway looks even more foolish. I can understand why he used a throwaway now.
Re: Google Chromium drops support for Linux 3.16 and earlier
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Happily there's an even more reasonable workaround of upgrading to a browser that doesn't dictate kernel versions.
Yep, Decisions like "well we broke it but upgrade your kernel to fix it" is why I'm now on Chrome and not Chromium anymore.
Chrome is chromium.
Re: Google Chromium drops support for Linux 3.16 and earlier
#125Re: Google Chromium drops support for Linux 3.16 and earlier
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Without defending Chrome team here; when a distro provides long time support (say > 1 year) I don't think is upstream responsibility to support the packages for that period of time. If the distro is upgrading the browser package I think that may break the API/ABI stability that a long time support distribution should provide, so I can't see why this is a Chrome problem. Also it sounds wrong that a web browser depends…
Well put. Although someone makes a LTS distribution, it really does not mean 3rd parties would be compelled or required to support that steadily aging platform. When you combine the fact that not even Ubuntu developers really support the LTS (9/10 of the developers flock to the newest release, and the bug reports towards LTS get generally ignored - the LTS tagged bug queues are graveyards), I can not see the whole po…
Actually both the bug and the kernel dates back to 7 months old as mentioned in the OP so it would actually be much shorter than 7 months.
Re: Google Chromium drops support for Linux 3.16 and earlier
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Happily there's an even more reasonable workaround of upgrading to a browser that doesn't dictate kernel versions.
The whole point of even having a kernel is to run the software you like. Kernel by itself doesn't really do anything for you. There's a feature of the kernel that Chromium wants to use. That's a perfectly good reason to upgrade. User software should dictate kernel versions.
Well, it's a bit more subtle than that. Because it were the Chromimum developers which created the feature in the first place.
seccomp was introduced in the Linux kernel because the Chromium developers wanted a good way to reduce the harm Chromium browser processes could do if they got compromised.
Chromium is pretty much the only user of seccomp right now.
(although for example Docker also has support for it, but I don't think it's widely used)
Now Kees Cook who implemented TSYNC for seccomp in the Linux kernel works for Google. The kernel commit even lists his @chromium.org email address.
Re: Google Chromium drops support for Linux 3.16 and earlier
#128Re: Google Chromium drops support for Linux 3.16 and earlier
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
Without defending Chrome team here; when a distro provides long time support (say > 1 year) I don't think is upstream responsibility to support the packages for that period of time. If the distro is upgrading the browser package I think that may break the API/ABI stability that a long time support distribution should provide, so I can't see why this is a Chrome problem. Also it sounds wrong that a web browser depends…
I'm sorry, but we ARE talking about arguably the most important piece of software running on an end-user device not being supported on a less than ONE YEAR old distribution. Not 5 years, not 15 years. Less than a year. The result of your argument is basically returning to dark ages of having to support old broken IE6 because the vendor couldn't be arsed to support an older platform. When did dropping support for a le…
My argument is that open source is what it is. Read the license and you'll find that there's nothing about free support; and if for some reason it breaks... you keep both pieces.
I know this puts distributions in a bad situation, but unless the users can force the upstream project to be more user friendly, I think the only option is to switch to a different software (hint: Firefox).
You seem to think I endorse Chrome team's behaviour on this, and I don't. That doesn't change reality though.
Re: Google Chromium drops support for Linux 3.16 and earlier
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
Happily there's an even more reasonable workaround of upgrading to a browser that doesn't dictate kernel versions.
The whole point of even having a kernel is to run the software you like. Kernel by itself doesn't really do anything for you. There's a feature of the kernel that Chromium wants to use. That's a perfectly good reason to upgrade. User software should dictate kernel versions.
No, user software should not dictate kernel versions, unless there is no alternative (e.g. security issues). Maybe I'm unique in this, but I don't have a single-purpose workstation. My computer does not exist to run Google Chrome; I have lots of applications I like to use.
Consider a workplace setting where someone may have other software which is much more conservative about using new features. A newer kernel may cause that software to stop working entirely; upgrading a kernel rarely introduces just the feature Google Chrome wants to use. You could tell those people to just use a different browser, but there are a lot of workplace users - is this new feature right now really worth losing those users?
For all the effort the Linux community has put into keeping Linux distributions secure and making them easier to use, now Google is saying Linux users have to either know how to update their kernel outside the provided package manager to use Chrome, or use whatever older version of Chrome still supports their kernel. This is going to frustrate or alienate most new Linux users as well as veteran users who like stability and package management. Is using this new feature right now really worth losing those users as well?
Chrome is arguably the most popular browser on the Internet. They ought to be more conservative about things like this; the right way to handle a new kernel feature is to either delay its use until supported by the majority of your users, or to detect it at runtime and use it if available. IMO, what they have done here is lazy and arrogant. A very poor decision.