Install Google Chrome on CentOS / RHEL

Install Google Chrome on CentOS / RHEL

Gopal Verma, Posted on November 24, 2015, filed in: Information Technology, Linux

 

Chrome is one of the favorite web browser on planet. Though Linux is a geeks operating system, but who won’t prefer to install something if it is available at ease. This article is a step-by-step guide on how to install chrome on CentOS and similar operating systems like RHEL. If you’re not a root user then you may root permission to execute these commands.

32 vs 64 bit Version

Very first task is to determine what version of Linux you are using – whether is it 32 bit or 64 version. To check this out you can enter the following command in linux terminal −

$ uname -m
x86_64

The output x86_64 tells that your system is 64 bit. If at your end, the output is i686 or i386 then it is 32 bit system. This will help us decide which version of chrome we are going to install. We shall take 64 bit as standard for this article.

Update Repository Information

We shall update the repository information for google chrome’s latest version. These repositories are collection of software on some Linux distribution server. To update open google-chrome.repo file located in /etc/yum.repos.d/ as shown below −

$ vi /etc/yum.repos.d/google-chrome.repo

You should see these lines in the file −

[google-chrome]
name=google-chrome
baseurl=http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/rpm/stable/x86_64
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://dl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub

If these lines are not there, please do update them before proceeding further.

Download Chrome rpm

Next, we need to download the chrome version suitable for us. If it is 32-bit version then type the following lines in command prompt and press enter −

wget https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_i386.rpm

Or if it is a 64-bit version you want to download, type the below given command and press return −

wget https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_x86_64.rpm

This should download the .rpm to your current directory.

Install Chrome

Execute yum install command to install chrome from the same directory where .rpm was downloaded −

sudo yum install ./google-chrome-stable_current_*.rpm

yum install not only installs the rpm but it will also try to resolve any package dependencies from the configured repositories. You can run your newly installed google-chrome by clicking on Applications > Internet > Google Chrome −

Alternatively, being a geek, you can run chrome from command prompt also using the below given command −

google-chrome &

Update Chrome

What if you already have a version of chrome on you Linux system or your new version is no more the new one? You can update it without going into all the technicalities. We have already updated our repositories so we can update our chrome by just using one command −

$ sudo yum update google-chrome-stable

Things are becoming easier and so is using Linux in GUI mode. Enjoy your Google Chrome on Linux and start surfing right away!