Should we remove chromium-browser from the archive?

[Olivier Tilloy]

On Tue, Feb 8, 2022 at 7:45 PM Heinrich Schuchardt
<heinrich.schuchardt at canonical.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/8/22 19:33, Olivier Tilloy wrote:
> > The chromium-browser package has been a "transitional" package that
> > installs the chromium snap since Ubuntu 19.10. Full-fledged deb
> > packages are still being built for 18.04.
> >
> > The question of whether to remove this transitional package from the
> > archive altogether has come up, so I'm sharing it here to get insights
> > and feedback from a wider audience before making an informed decision.
> >
> > Some features of the deb package that are worth taking into account:
> >   - /usr/bin/{chromium-browser,chromedriver} symlinks to their snap counterparts
> >   - a postinst script that installs alternatives for x-www-browser and
> > gnome-www-browser (unfortunately snapd doesn't have any mechanism for
> > this yet)
> >   - a custom apport hook that collects additional information about the
> > snap and its dependencies
> >   - did I miss any other features?
> >
> > Orthogonal to this, it's been reported that the version number of the
> > deb is confusing, because it contains a random outdated chromium
> > version, but this can be addressed separately if the package remains
> > in the archive with the use of an epoch to reset the version scheme to
> > something saner.
> >
> > I welcome your thoughts on the matter.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> >   Olivier
> >
>
> 18.04 users upgrading to 22.04 will expect that their profile
> (bookmarks, cookies, passwords, settings) from the full chromium package
> isn't lost. How will this be guaranteed if the transitional package is
> dropped?

Their profile won't be lost, as uninstalling the deb leaves the
profile directory untouched.
However it is true that dist-upgrading from 18.04 to 22.04 would
result in chromium being uninstalled, and users would have to manually
re-install the snap (which would then pick up the existing profiles).
Not a nice user experience.