Playwright MCP setup is blocked on Linux Arm64 due to Chrome-only install path

[314systems]

Problem

When trying to use Playwright MCP on Linux Arm64, the setup flow effectively requires Chrome installation, but Chrome install fails on this architecture.

What happens

Running: npx playwright install chrome

results in:

Switching to root user to install dependencies...
++ arch
+ [[ aarch64 == \a\a\r\c\h\6\4 ]]
+ echo 'ERROR: not supported on Linux Arm64'
ERROR: not supported on Linux Arm64
+ exit 1
Failed to install browsers
Error: Failed to install chrome

Why this is an issue

In practice, this blocks Playwright MCP usage on Linux Arm64 environments, because users are guided toward a Chrome install path that is not supported there.

Expected behavior

Playwright MCP should remain usable on Linux Arm64 by avoiding a hard dependency on Chrome installation.

[yury-s]

Chrome is not available on Linux Arm yet. chromium should work just fine though, you can pass it as --browser=chromium or set int the config. Another alternative is to use distribution-specific build of Chromium and set executablePath in the config.

[314systems]

https://playwright.dev/docs/getting-started-mcp#browser-selection

Might need to update the docs.