Installing headless chrome on Ubuntu.

install-chrome-headless.sh

#!/bin/bash
# from https://chromium.woolyss.com/
# and https://gist.github.com/addyosmani/5336747
# and https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/lkgr/headless/README.md
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:canonical-chromium-builds/stage
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install chromium-browser 
chromium-browser --headless --no-sandbox http://example.org/

Getting this 2 errors:

[0405/025551.087123:WARNING:headless_browser_main_parts.cc(83)] Cannot create Pref Service with no user data dir.
[0405/025551.106946:ERROR:vaapi_wrapper.cc(573)] Could not get a valid VA display

I'm seeing the same as Marcelo reported in a multipass 20.04 instance

I'm seeing the same as Marcelo reported in a multipass 20.04 instance

same here! (Ubuntu 20 LTS)

After a bit more poking around, I think this is related to [snap] chromium headless crashes at startup on non-desktop system

fwiw I'm seeing this with Chromium/Chromedriver 89

Personally, I didn't use PPA provided as it gives the following warning:

Testing site just before upload to Ubuntu main. Things here are either broken and not ready to use, or landing in the distro anyway very soon. You shouldn't use this.
More info: https://launchpad.net/~canonical-chromium-builds/+archive/ubuntu/stage
Press [ENTER] to continue or Ctrl-c to cancel adding it.

(emphasis added by me)

Instead I did the following:

• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt install -y software-properties-common
• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:phd.re/chromium-browser
• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt install -y chromium-browser

Edit: since I made this comment, original repository is no longer there. Please see command by @phd here.

Personally, I didn't use PPA provided as it gives the following warning:

Testing site just before upload to Ubuntu main. Things here are either broken and not ready to use, or landing in the distro anyway very soon. You shouldn't use this.
More info: https://launchpad.net/~canonical-chromium-builds/+archive/ubuntu/stage
Press [ENTER] to continue or Ctrl-c to cancel adding it.

(emphasis added by me)

Instead I did the following:

* sudo apt-get update

* sudo apt install -y software-properties-common

* sudo add-apt-repository ppa:phd.re/chromium-browser

* sudo apt-get update

* sudo apt install -y chromium-browser

Thank you so much! This finally got my Laravel Dusk Test suite running on Windows 10 + WSL (Ubuntu 20)

uninstall previous chrome sudo apt-get purge chromium-browser

re-install the new stable chrome headless

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y libappindicator1 fonts-liberation
wget https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i google-chrome*.deb

I used these commands in a non-alpine based Dockerfile to setup LightHouse. At first it seemed to work great, but I encountered errors with the Debian package dependencies. After using gdebi-core as an alternative for dpkg, I discovered that the URL given by @putuoka is actually outdated (it's from 2018), so I used the current official URL to download Chrome Headless.

You can refer to my Dockerfile below for references.

FROM node:16
#RUN yes | npm install -g npm@8.0.0
RUN npm install -g lighthouse
RUN apt update
RUN apt-get install -y libappindicator1 fonts-liberation
RUN wget https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
RUN apt install -y gdebi-core
RUN gdebi --non-interactive google-chrome*.deb

I've successfully installed it. For additional references, you can view the answer by @LoganGray

Thanks to all.

@alexkuc
@Kcharle

This ppa repository (https://launchpad.net/~phd/+archive/ubuntu/chromium-browser) was moved (phd.re -> phd):
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:phd/chromium-browser
Since this gist is easily googleable when looking for alternative chromium ppa, could you please update the above in your comments?

Also you will need apt-pinning, as occasionally the original snap package may have higher version than the one in this ppa:

echo '
Package: *
Pin: release o=LP-PPA-phd-chromium-browser
Pin-Priority: 1001
' | sudo tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/phd-chromium-browser

this one works on debian 11

FROM node:14-bullseye

RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y fonts-liberation
RUN wget -q -O - https://dl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub | apt-key add -
RUN sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list'
RUN apt update && apt install -y google-chrome-stable

@u007 you are a hero, it also works on Ubuntu 20.04

sorry i also found it somewhere, lost track of it haha

I am on a ubuntu ...

and i cant make it work :(

npx lighthouse --chrome-flags='--headless' --quiet --no-update-notifier --no-enable-error-reporting --output=json --throttle --stop --preset=desktop --output-path=\nytimes_com\2022_05_15_01_32_43_R_1_nytimes_com_desktop.json https://www.nytimes.com/
Unable to connect to Chrome

are you running in docker?

@phd I am more than happy to update my comment. Would you mind providing me a full command so that I can copy & paste as I won't be able to test it anymore?

@alexkuc

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:phd/chromium-browser

echo '
Package: *
Pin: release o=LP-PPA-phd-chromium-browser
Pin-Priority: 1001
' | sudo tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/phd-chromium-browser

sudo apt update

sudo apt install -y chromium-browser

@phd Done, thank you!

thanks

Do yourselves a favour and switch to Microsoft Edge, Chromium underneath and a proper deb package

@ktechmidas oh man... That's hilarious, thanks for the great advice!

The only difficulty I had with installing Microsoft Edge + WebDriver into a CI docker — it wasn't easy to contain the primal laughter of me doing such a fun thing — otherwise, it actually went silky smooth! 🤣

Way smoother than dealing with google's utterly borked apt repos, at any rate.

FROM python:3.10

#-- Add Microsoft's deb package signing key -- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/linux/packages
RUN wget https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc -O - \
    | gpg --no-default-keyring --keyring /etc/apt/keyrings/microsoft-packages.gpg --import -

#-- Add APT package repository
RUN echo 'deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/microsoft-packages.gpg] https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/edge stable main' \
    > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/microsoft-edge.list

#-- Refresh index, install latest stable Microsoft Edge
RUN apt-get update && \
    apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends microsoft-edge-stable

#-- Install WebDriver -- matching version as Edge we just installed
RUN set -x; \
    EDGE_VERSION=$(dpkg-query --showformat='${Version}' --show microsoft-edge-stable | sed s/-1$//) && \
    WEBDRIVER=https://msedgedriver.azureedge.net/127.0.2651.107/edgedriver_linux64.zip && \
    echo "Edge version $EDGE_VERSION" && \
    echo "WebDriver $WEBDRIVER" && \
    wget $WEBDRIVER -O /tmp/webdriver.zip && \
    unzip /tmp/webdriver.zip msedgedriver -d /usr/local/bin/ && \
    rm -vf /tmp/webdriver.zip && \
    ls -l `which msedgedriver`

#-- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webdriver-chromium/

[...]

Also easy to find more pedestrian guides, here's one https://linuxcapable.com/how-to-install-microsoft-edge-on-debian-linux/

... This is so cool, ⭐ https://github.com/microsoft/linux-package-repositories

Anyway, awesome tip, thanks again!