GNOME Shell integration for Chrome Installation Guide

Distro packages

The easiest way to install extension and connector is use your distro's favorite package manager.

If there is no package in your distro you can install extension via Chrome web store and native connector using cmake.

Chrome policy will be installed along with connector that forces extension installation from Chrome store for Google Chrome/Chromium and Vivaldi browsers.

For Firefox you should manually install extension from Mozilla Addons site. Please note that Firefox is supported since connector version 8.

For Opera you should manually install extension from Opera Addons site. Please note that Opera is supported since connector version 7.

Arch Linux

PKGBUILD available in the AUR: chrome-gnome-shell-git.

Debian Linux

Package is available in Sid and Stretch: chrome-gnome-shell.

Please note, that Debian package is only supports Chromium. Google Chrome and Opera are not supported in Debian package. For details look to this issue.

For a workaround look into the Troubleshooting section.

Fedora Linux

Package is available in Fedora Copr: region51/chrome-gnome-shell. To install it type:

# dnf copr enable region51/chrome-gnome-shell
# dnf install chrome-gnome-shell

Gentoo Linux

Ebuild is available in main tree. Just type as root user:

# emerge -av gnome-extra/chrome-gnome-shell

Ubuntu Linux

Package is available in Universe repositories

To install package type:

$ sudo apt-get install chrome-gnome-shell

FreeBSD

FreeBSD is not supported, sorry. Ask www/chromium maintainer to fix bug 212925.

Cmake installation

First of all make sure following dependencies are installed:

• Build time
  • Python 2.7+ or 3.x (also runtime dependency)
  • Cmake 2.8 (or newer)

  • Coreutils

  • jq

• Runtime

  • GNOME Shell

  • PyGObject

  • Python Requests 2.x

  • DBus

Then clone source repository or download latest release tarball. To make git clone type:

$ git clone git://git.gnome.org/chrome-gnome-shell

Web extension sources located in "extension" folder. Refer Google Chrome documentation for information about installation of unpacked extension.

All commands must be issued from the root of cloned repository.

1. Create build folder and go to it:

   $ mkdir build
   $ cd build

2. Run cmake to create makefiles:

   $ cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DBUILD_EXTENSION=OFF ../

3. Install connector:

   $ sudo make install

Troubleshooting

Problem:

• You had uninstalled native connector package. Web extension still installed in browser and you can not uninstall it because it "installed by enterprise policy".

Resolution:

• Your package manager did not uninstalled policy files. You should remove them manually:

  # rm /etc/opt/chrome/policies/managed/chrome-gnome-shell.json
  # rm /etc/chromium/policies/managed/chrome-gnome-shell.json

  If you had installed native connector via package manager you also should report this issue to package maintainer.

Problem:

• You are using Google Chrome or Opera in Debian and getting "Native connector not installed" error.

Resolution:

• Debian package does not support Google Chrome and Opera.

  For details look to this issue. As a workaround you can copy all json files from /etc/chromium/native-messaging-hosts to /etc/opt/chrome/native-messaging-hosts.

Problem:

• You are using Firefox and getting high CPU usage and crash when closing browser.

Resolution:

• It is a Firefox bug 1349874. You may vote for this bug to get it fixed faster.