Getting Google repositories to work with apt-get on Ubuntu Hardy

Question

I've installed Google Chrome on Hardy via the .deb file and would like to configure apt-get for automatic updates.

[I have another machine running Ubuntu Karmic where this works fine; apt-get knows the package as 'google-chrome'; I'm now using a Dell Mini 10 with Ubuntu 8.04 LTS installed]

As part of the .deb install, two entries have been added to the third- party software sources tab:

http://dl.google.com/linux/deb stable main

http://dl.google.com/linux/deb stable non-free main

However if I check for updates with either of these clicked, I get the following error:

Failed to fetch http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/dists/stable/Release Unable to find expected entry main/binary-lpia/Packages in Meta-index file (malformed Release file?)

There is a thread here which indicates others have had the same problem:

http://www.google.co.uk/support/forum/p/Chrome/thread?tid=097d103f87b49abe&hl=en

This references a further thread:

http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=38608

which suggests the problem has been fixed.

Despite this I remain unable to get it to work, and none of the suggested workarounds seem to work either.

Ideas ? Thanks.

Answer 1

I think the issue here is that the Ubuntu installaion on your Dell Mini uses LPIA (Low Power Intel Architecture) and the Google Software Repository doesn't provide the "google-chrome" package for this architecture. Hence apt-get is giving you an error. You will have to do the updates manually using the "google-chrome" package for the i386 architecture.

On another note, the following thread provides details about repackaging an i386 package for LPIA. I hope this helps.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=962835