Question 4.3: Installing other Browsers You want to use a browser other th......
Installing other Browsers
You want to use a browser other than Midori.
You can use a number of browsers on the Raspberry Pi. The Pi is not a powerful computer, and modern browsers and web pages can put quite a load on it. This means that when you use a browser on a Raspberry Pi, there is always a trade-off between features and performance.
Chromium (Figure 4-4), as the name suggests, will be familiar to users of Google Chrome. It is full featured, but noticeably slow when you try to scroll up and down a busy web page. You can install Chromium using the following command, which will put a new link in the Internet section of your Start menu:
| $ sudo apt-get install chromium-browser |
Another popular alternative to Midori is Iceweasel (Figure 4-5). This browser is based on Firefox and will perform faster than Chromium because it uses the mobile version of websites (when available), which will normally be much simpler HTML. You can download and install Iceweasel using this command:
| $ sudo apt-get install iceweasel |
Discussion
Since browsers require a certain amount of power for many websites, you really need a model B with 512 MB to avoid a frustratingly slow experience. It is probably also worth overclocking your Raspberry Pi (Recipe 1.14).
See Also
For more information on installing with apt-get, see Recipe 3.16.
