Linux support

[damodaranr]

When can we expect WebView2 to be available on Linux (ubuntu) now that Microsoft Edge Chromium is officially available on Linux.

AB#27465288

[champnic]

Thanks for the inquiry! We are currently planning on adding support for MacOS first, so I wouldn't expect Linux until later 2021. We'll use this GH issue to track support and keep you posted. Thanks!

[gismofx]

@champnic Is there a timeline/schedule issue I can follow for MacOS support?

[kirsan31]

What about Avalonia support?
Or may be I need to open a new issue?

[champnic]

@kirsan31 I don't think we will be specifically contributing to Avalonia. It sounds like something folks who are passionate about WebView2 may want to contribute to that project though!

[Jinjinov]

@champnic when approximately - which month - can we expect WebView2 on macOS / Linux? or at least which quarter?

[champnic]

It is on our roadmap but at this point we believe it will be post 2021 so we don't have a specific quarter - we will share updates when we have more detailed timelines.

[TomMarius]

@champnic is there (going to be) an issue tracking macOS support, or will you use this one?

[champnic]

@TomMarius That's a great point - I'll create a new issue to track Mac: #1314.

[RChrisCoble]

Registering interest in this support.

Specifically we want to deliver a MAUI wrapped Blazor application that also runs on Linux. My understanding is we need a Linux version of WebView2 and some form of MAUI wrapper support.

CC: @danroth27

[captainjono]

Plus 1 to support for a cross platform WebView framework.

@RChrisCoble Ive been building apps in this vain with Xamarin WebView on mobiles, and with Chromely on desktops, sharing code across all projects. Ive got a fork that runs on macos, windows, linux and supposedly works with Blazor but i havnt tried. Alvalonia runs on CEF, pretty much all current electron style frameworks do.

Im keen bring .net outa the dark ages and start a MAUItron to package this style of app up into a simple to consume library and would love it to be powered by AspNetCORE + WebView2.

I came across this thread while tracking down my latest CEF gremlin. Its a massive maintanance overhead that you need to dedicate either full time resources to or deal being on a stale build. My WebView code hardly changes from update to update if at all.

The Java ecosystem has no problem with embedded Browser apps on any platform, C# definitely feels like the poor second cousin in this area.

[yangzhongke]

Because 'AddHostObjectToScript' uses the notorious COM technology, which is Windows-dependent , I don't think it will be supported on the Linux version, right?
Why did your team decide to use COM technology to implement the hostObjects?

[jschroedl]

WebView2 was created as a replacement for WPF WebBrowser and UWP WebView, so it is no surprise that it uses COM. IMO, making this cross-plat is a pipe dream which adds no value to myself as a Windows desktop developer. I personally hope Lx and Mac are very low priorities.

[RChrisCoble]

WebView2 was created as a replacement for WPF WebBrowser and UWP WebView, so it is no surprise that it uses COM. IMO, making this cross-plat is a pipe dream which adds no value to myself as a Windows desktop developer. I personally hope Lx and Mac are very low priorities.

There are some of us that want to "write once, use everywhere" using something like a MAUI wrapped Blazor application. Having this support makes that possible.

[lucasyvas]

WebView2 was created as a replacement for WPF WebBrowser and UWP WebView, so it is no surprise that it uses COM. IMO, making this cross-plat is a pipe dream which adds no value to myself as a Windows desktop developer. I personally hope Lx and Mac are very low priorities.

Edge is cross-platform to support cross-platform developers - I won't speculate the amount of work required to make this happen and if it's worth it or not (because I don't know), but Windows is less and less the sole market that Microsoft aims to serve.

[x4e]

WebView2 was created as a replacement for WPF WebBrowser and UWP WebView, so it is no surprise that it uses COM. IMO, making this cross-plat is a pipe dream which adds no value to myself as a Windows desktop developer. I personally hope Lx and Mac are very low priorities.

I fail to understand how what a single developer values should direct the goal of such a major library

[csdvrx]

adds no value to myself as a Windows desktop developer.
I personally hope Lx and Mac are very low priorities.

As a Windows developer and user, I personally hope Linux support is high priority, since having more potential users adds value to my software, and by extension myself.

[sing-ideas]

Thanks for the inquiry! We are currently planning on adding support for MacOS first, so I wouldn't expect Linux until later 2021. We'll use this GH issue to track support and keep you posted. Thanks!

Hi,

Is there a roadmap ID for Linux release of MS Edge Chromium WebView2?

regards,
Sing

[ericoporto]

A WebView with Linux support would allow me to use more C# in my developments.

[lucasyvas]

Is the goal for WebView2 for Linux/Mac GA to provide a singular language binding, or will it expose a C API that can be bound to anything supporting FFI?

[mt16in]

What is the timeline look like? would be interested in the beta program if there is any for Mac or Linux.

[captainjono]

I heard through the grapevine that the first beta will be Released this time next year for macOS.

…

On Fri, Sep 17, 2021 at 1:21 PM mt16in ***@***.***> wrote: What is the timeline look like? would be interested in the beta program if there is any for Mac or Linux. — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#645 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABOPWTW4XX52ITVOEYAXSILUCKX37ANCNFSM4T4LKLZQ> . Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS <https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1477376905?ct=notification-email&mt=8&pt=524675> or Android <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.android&referrer=utm_campaign%3Dnotification-email%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dgithub>.

[kejml]

I heard through the grapevine that the first beta will be Released this time next year for macOS.

And I bet never for Linux...

[LifeIsStrange]

@gamelaster isn't chromium/chrome having the same issue?

[gamelaster]

@LifeIsStrange Chromium isn't problem, as you can compile it by yourself with VA-API module enabled, and from the articles online, it seems that Google Chrome have VA-API module compiled (and needs to be enabled with flag).

[sing-ideas]

@LifeIsStrange Chromium isn't problem, as you can compile it by yourself with VA-API module enabled, and from the articles online, it seems that Google Chrome have VA-API module compiled (and needs to be enabled with flag).

Hi,
Our developer too expressed this issue. Microsoft is now speaking about Linux Distro, not sure what is stopping them from working on this Linux Webview2, even a road map ID is not available.

[kejml]

Microsoft doesn't care about Linux desktop - just look at Teams client, it's years behind in features.

[sandsc]

Any update on this?

[pboushy]

Microsoft doesn't care about Linux desktop - just look at Teams client, it's years behind in features.

Lol. Teams native client in Linux is EOL even now. They’re doing a progressive web app instead.

[RChrisCoble]

Microsoft doesn't care about Linux desktop - just look at Teams client, it's years behind in features.

Lol. Teams native client in Linux is EOL even now. They’re doing a progressive web app instead.

Well yeah, MS is doing PWA's for Outlook and Teams, and I assume the rest of the Office suite eventually to have a single code base and UI layer cross platform. We're just asking for that support on Linux as well.

I've been running the "One Outlook" PWA for months now, it's just a bunch of WebView2's. Support for this on Linux 'should' be trivial since Edge is supported on Linux already.

[gamelaster]

@RChrisCoble well, yes, Edge is supported on Linux, but it even doesn't have VA-API support enabled (literally, one compilation switch to enable it), so all video and audio stuff is software accelerated, so Teams or anything can be pretty slow on low-end pc

[RChrisCoble]

Thanks for that info. For our UC's, we don't have streaming video, we just want to run on the smallest hardware possible on Linux. We're demoing our Blazor solution today running on Pi based hardware and it works, albeit slowly. I'm hoping if we can run it as Blazor Hybrid with the business logic outside of the browser, performance would be more than acceptable.

[champnic]

Hey all - We don't currently have a timeline for when we would begin this work. Unfortunately it's very unlikely to be soon.

[pboushy]

Lol. Teams native client in Linux is EOL even now. They’re doing a progressive web app instead.

Well yeah, MS is doing PWA's for Outlook and Teams, and I assume the rest of the Office suite eventually to have a single code base and UI layer cross platform. We're just asking for that support on Linux as well.

I've been running the "One Outlook" PWA for months now, it's just a bunch of WebView2's. Support for this on Linux 'should' be trivial since Edge is supported on Linux already.

“One Outlook” and PWA are very different.
“One Outlook” last I read up on it was written using Microsoft’s new unified code base which is C++

but yeah, totally agree that having a unified consistent app across all platforms would be ideal.
I think they’re attempting to do that for Teams for Linux by using a PWA and focusing on improving that PWA instead of dealing with the complexities of maintaining electron or whatever underlying solution for Teams native.

by using the PWA, they leave the complexities of getting it to run on Linux to the browser that the PWA is loaded in.

[intrnl]

please keep off-topic discussions out of this. people follow this issue thread because they're interested on seeing WebView2 on Linux :)

[geckolinux]

It's a pity that Linux won't be supported any time soon with the new method. But what about the current Electron app wrapper, will that at least continue to be supported for Linux?

[ajtruckle]

@champnic I just had a user tell me they can no longer use my software. They were using Wine on Linux. I have not read all these posts but it seems that his pc configuration is not on the roadmap for support?

[champnic]

If you had a specific issue or crash that's happening in the Wine on Linux scenario we could try to take a quick look in a new issue. But generally speaking Linux support or Wine on Linux isn't coming for a while.

[gamelaster]

@champnic there was some time ago issue, where V8 engine was crashing the CEF and Chromium due using security stuff, which Wine have fixed. As far as I remember, the updated V8 version should be since Chromium v110.

[ajtruckle]

@gamelaster Are you implying that it is now possible to find a way to get the runtime running on Wine?

[leaanthony]

If you had a specific issue or crash that's happening in the Wine on Linux scenario we could try to take a quick look in a new issue. But generally speaking Linux support or Wine on Linux isn't coming for a while.

Oh that's a shame. You'd absolutely dominate the Linux space considering the alternatives. It's a huge problem.

[rtmann]

For UI's in my apps, I've been using Photino V2: https://docs.tryphotino.io/What's-New-in-V2

https://github.com/tryphotino/photino.NET

Would love to have WebView2 so packages like Photino can be WAY better though....

[gilvbp]

@champnic thanks for Mac Teams 2.0 (#1314 (comment)), any schedule date for the Linux release?

[lukurde]

"New Teams" just dropped with the new shiny architecture:

We've been promised WebView2 for Linux for years. Any updates on the roadmap?

[grilo88]

The world immediately needs WebView2 running on Linux. Agility please!

[leaanthony]

The webview story for Linux is somewhat of a dog's breakfast. This would dominate.

[DoubleDBE]

bot added the priority-low label 3 weeks ago

Great 🙄

We need this ASAP!

[jaruba]

@DoubleDBE while i don't work at MS, I do not expect it to come to Linux prior to coming to MacOS (because Linux is, unfortunately, the least used of the 3 major OS options)

and MacOS support is also stuck with no official answer: #1314

i am following both threads as we were hoping to move our cross-platform app to WebView2

[dbidwell94]

It'd be super nice to have this on Linux. Webkit2gtk is lacking so many features which are stated as "not planned". So many dependencies require it, it'd be nice to have a framework which has industry standard features like FIDO2 / Webauth.