Re: Qemu + tiny core linux = poor man's chromium on NetBSD

[Swift Griggs <swiftgriggs%gmail.com@localhost>]

On Sat, 27 Feb 2016, Mayuresh wrote:
> What doesn't change is, whether you like it or not, you have no option 
> but to work with such websites. Well, had that not been the case I'd use 
> elinks almost everywhere...

I feel the same way. I've used Chrome enough on other platforms to see 
that it's clearly faster than most and has some nice features. However, 
I'm distrustful of Google and Chrome seems to lack some of the privacy and 
anti-tracking features of others.

> Best option is of course to have it natively on NetBSD and I am sure it 
> will come some day.

I'm sure it will. FreeBSD and OpenBSD already have it. Hopefully, it's 
just a matter of time.

> Linux emulation layer could be an option. But I personally do not have 
> sufficient expertise to try Linux version of chromium through NetBSD 
> Linux emulation layer.

I have tried it. It seems to fall apart somewhere in emulation-land.

> May be if someone has, kindly submit a package to pkgsrc or wip. (Just 
> like libreoffice has native as well as Linux emulation version we might 
> have both in future.)

That'd be nice. I like how that's done with Firefox.

> Linux as Xen DomU is an option and I know how to use it, but I have 
> several other difficulties with xen, particularly related to graphics.

I have two problems with Xen. Lack of a console is problem #1. The second 
is that the Xen tools that are written in Python love to fail for a 
variety of reasons and when they don't fail, they often don't work 
properly. I've had terrible experiences with the toolset over the years on 
both NetBSD and Linux.

> So I come to Qemu.

Qemu is categorically awesome, if you ask me. Fabrice Bellard is a genius. 
The only problem is the lack of any acceleration via kquemu and/or 
friends. Even on very fast systems, the performance hit is massive.

> Tiny core Linux can be a very good option as it is lightweight and has 
> chromium browser in its repository.

Are you using some kind of Docker version? I'm just curious.

> Getting it work is pretty easy as well. After getting the terminal I set 
> the DISPLAY to that of the host and launch chromium perfectly fine.

You're lucky then. I've done the same and it doesn't always work. Many 
times it complains about lack of some X11 extensions and XDMCP won't work. 
Sounds like your combination works well.

> I tried to create a nested X server with Xnest and launched chromium in 
> that.

I suppose you could also try to launch it within an X11 session running in 
Xvnc. Of course, that sucks because you can't simply launch Chrome and 
redirect the display, you have to show the whole "desktop". That's my #1 
complaint about VNC - you can't share out apps (with the not-very-good 
exception of SeamlessRDP which is pretty breaky).

> Now the freezing behavior is gone. However the Xnested application does 
> not render properly. Many of the widgets, text elements simply do not 
> appear properly under Xnest.

That almost always happens to me when using Xnest.

> Above was on NetBSD 7.0 amd64 Qemu 2.4.0.1, but I had witnessed similar 
> behavior with older NetBSD and Qemu versions in the past.

Does the whole VM lock up or just Chrome within it?

-Swift