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The chromium-browser Ubuntu 18.04 bionic-updates package lists not only the latest Chromium 103 (at the time of this writing) but also supports arm64 and armhf architectures. However, chromium-browser Ubuntu 22.04 focal-updates only contains a very old version of Chromium, 85.x

And by doing a package search, we can confirm only 18.04 contains the latest updates for Chromium:

Chromium browser package search

Additionally, the latest chromium-driver is only available on 18.04.

Ubuntu 18.04 is set to reach extended security maintenance in April 2023. Will chromium continue to be updated, or will the maintainer need to start publishing the updates in a more up to date repository? For instance, the Debian maintainers keep both Chromium and Firefox arm64/armhf up to date in Debian Sid.

And regarding Firefox on Ubuntu, the story is similar. by doing a package search for Firefox we see that the most up to date builds for the arm64/armhf architectures is only on bionic-updates. (Firefox is kept up to date for amd64 in other versions, but for arm architectures it is only up to date on bionic).

So the question is:

  • Why are these packages -- for arm architectures -- only up to date on Bionic?
  • Will they continue to be updated once Bionic transitions to the extended security maintenance in April 2023?
  • What is the thought process by only publishing these updates in the older LTS and not the two newer LTSs (20.04 and 22.04)?

I did find this answer, https://askubuntu.com/a/890625/8510, which somewhat helps understand the differences between the various repositories, but the information is from 2017 and not exactly up to date anymore.

UPDATE: Some of you suggested the answer to the question might be here, Why don't the Ubuntu repositories have the latest versions of software?, but this only talks about why software in general is not kept up to date. It does not explain why something is up to date on an older LTS version of Ubuntu but not any of several newer versions. If Chromium just plain wasn't up to date anywhere in the Ubuntu ecosphere, then the other question would have the answers.

Here's an outline of the State of Chromium (arm64/armhf) on Ubuntu versions:

  • Ubuntu 18.04 - Chromium v103 - up to date, LTS

  • Ubuntu 20.04 - Chromium v85 - Not up to date, LTS

  • Ubuntu 22.04 - Chromium v85 - Not up to date, LTS

References:

Hope this helps make the question more clear, which is why is Chromium arm64 only up to date on the older, more outdated Ubuntu?

jmort253
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1 Answers1

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As of February 17th, 2023, Nathan Teodosio responded in the Ubuntu Launchpad Bug Report - Deb version numbering is misleading. Apparently, they stopped updating the transitional deb packages. Here is what Nathan has to say about this:

For Ubuntu >= Focal the transitional debs are frozen at the version number 1:85...

This might make one think[1] that it will install a critically outdated Chromium while it does not, because it installs the snap.

[1] https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chromium-browser/+question/702591

And in Answers Launchpad, Manfred Hampl explains that the deb package installs a snap, which then installs the latest Chromium browser:

The "chromium" deb packages for Ubuntu focal and newer are dummy-packages that do not contain the software, but install the snap version. So there is no need to provide updates for these, because update management is happening in the snap store. Ubuntu's deb package always installs the newest stable version available in the snap store.

In short, just because the package says Chromium 85 doesn't mean it will install Chromium 85. It will instead install the latest version.

jmort253
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