mastodon.laurenweinstein.org is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
This is a private site and does not permit user signups.

Administered by:

Server stats:

1
active users

***** Without warning, appears to have broken for still supported Linux systems *****

I'm receiving reports -- and have confirmed locally -- that Google appears to have broken support for the Chrome browser for Ubuntu Linux 18.04 systems, without any warning that I'm aware of.

While 18.04 is an older system, many are running with extended support from Canonical that runs through 2028. Many of these systems are in crucial applications where upgrading to later Ubuntu versions is not currently practical.

The problem appears to be that while Chrome Stable 127 is fine on these systems, Chrome Stable 128 now being rolled will not upgrade via apt, due apparently to the system libgcc-s1 library not being >= 4.2.

While there may be manual workarounds for this situation, they cannot be considered generally applicable since tampering with system libraries can easily render a system unbootable.

If Google intended to obsolete Chrome on these systems, there should have been plenty of warning -- but apparently there was none. Not being able to update Chrome invokes a variety of serious security concerns.

The current situation is unacceptable. -L

Earlier today I noted that had apparently broken support for their newly released Stable 128 on some older Linux systems that nonetheless may still be crucial and under extended support.

See:
mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@

Because 128 has a number of crucial security fixes, this created a potentially very bad situation, especially since Google apparently (as far as I know) did not warn in advance of this impact.

I now have a workaround to permit upgrade/install of Chrome Stable 128 at least on my own Ubuntu 18.04 LTS test system, and possibly on other affected Linux versions as well -- but I have ONLY tested on my own 18.04 LTS system which is under extended support from Canonical.

The procedure is not complicated, but I want to emphasize that I cannot predict its safety or other effects on other versions of Linux or for that matter on any systems other than my own 18.04 LTS test system. So if you choose to follow the procedure below, you do so entirely at your own risk, and I would urge backing up affected systems in advance.

Procedure:

If you don't already have:

add-apt-repository

installed, you should install it.

then:

sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo apt-get update

If you do software development on your system, you likely already have that installed.

then:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-toolchain-r/test
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install gcc-10

You hopefully will then be able to update to Chrome Stable 128 successfully.

Take care.

Best, -L

Lauren Weinstein

***** Google's OWN support page claims Chrome is supported on affected Linux systems -- but it isn't starting with Chrome Stable 128 out yesterday *****

I previously discussed how has broken support for Chrome at least on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (which while past "end of life" is still available for support by Canonical to 2028). This problem began yesterday when Google began rolling out Chrome Stable 128. This may also affect some later Linux systems, but I have only tested on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

There was (as far as I know) no warning that support for this system would be dropped (which normally would require a long lead time since there are many of these systems in important environments where full system upgrades are a complex process).

NOTE that Google's own support page:

support.google.com/chrome/a/an

says that Chrome is supported on 64-bit Ubuntu 18.04+, with absolutely no indication that this support was ending now or later. No future deprecation dates of any kind are shown for Chrome Linux support (unlike Windows, where there is a table discussing Chrome deprecation for Windows systems).

I posted yesterday a workaround for this situation that provides a crucial Linux library that should permit Chrome Stable 128 to successfully update/install/run in this unfortunate situation that Google has suddenly created.

Please see:

mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@

I will add that responses like, "Google sucks, don't trust them, run Firefox", etc. are not at all helpful to most users whether individuals or especially organizations and businesses suddenly faced with this problem. Rushing to change browsers suddenly is in my opinion not a great idea, and Chrome Stable 128 is important due to its security fixes.

Also, the broad "Google Hate" expressed by some people does not advance the situation in a positive direction.

L