Chrome Remote Desktop on Fedora

Problem Statement

Reference: Reddit thread

Google chrome only gives .deb as the installable while trying to install the browser extension. deb is only for Debian based systems and doesn't work on Fedora which uses rpm as the installables

Steps

Install perl-ExtUtils-MakeMaker-7.44-2.fc32

This is a requirement for installing alien package on the fedora system.

• Download the rpm file from here
• Install using yum by running the following command (replace the rpm name with teh version downloaded, if its different)

sudo yum install perl-ExtUtils-MakeMaker-7.44-2.fc32.noarch.rpm -y

Install rpm build package(s)

sudo yum install rpm-build rpmrebuild -y

Install alien package

Reference: how-to-install-deb-packages-on-fedora/

• Download the tar.gz from here
• Run the following commands (assumption is that perl is already installed) and alien will be installed

tar xf alien-VERSION.tar.gz
cd alien
perl Makefile.PL; make; sudo make install

Download google chrome browser extension

• Install Google chrome Remote Desktop extension from here
• Download the deb installable by clicking on the Remote Desktop Chrome Extension and hitting the following ic

Convert deb to rpm

• Run alien command to convert the deb to rpm (this uses rpmbuild command internally)

sudo alien -r chrome-remote-desktop_current_amd64.deb

Succesful Run will look like the following

$ sudo alien -r chrome-remote-desktop_current_amd64.deb
Warning: Skipping conversion of scripts in package chrome-remote-desktop: postinst postrm preinst prerm
Warning: Use the --scripts parameter to include the scripts.
chrome-remote-desktop-81.0.4044.60-2.x86_64.rpm generated

Hitting Errors during installation of rpm

$ sudo yum install chrome-remote-desktop-81.0.4044.60-2.x86_64.rpm
Last metadata expiration check: 1:52:52 ago on Fri 27 Mar 2020 09:58:57 AM PDT.
Dependencies resolved.
================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================
 Package                                                                   Architecture                                               Version                                                            Repository                                                        Size
================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================
Upgrading:
 chrome-remote-desktop                                                     x86_64                                                     81.0.4044.60-2                                                     @commandline                                                      28 M

Transaction Summary
================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================
Upgrade  1 Package

Total size: 28 M
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Downloading Packages:
Running transaction check
Transaction check succeeded.
Running transaction test
Error: Transaction test error:
  file / from install of chrome-remote-desktop-81.0.4044.60-2.x86_64 conflicts with file from package filesystem-3.12-2.fc31.x86_64
  file /usr/lib from install of chrome-remote-desktop-81.0.4044.60-2.x86_64 conflicts with file from package filesystem-3.12-2.fc31.x86_64
  file /etc/init.d from install of chrome-remote-desktop-81.0.4044.60-2.x86_64 conflicts with file from package initscripts-10.02-2.fc31.x86_64
  file /etc/init.d from install of chrome-remote-desktop-81.0.4044.60-2.x86_64 conflicts with file from package chkconfig-1.11-5.fc31.x86_64

Edit the rpm file to remove the conflicting dirs

• Run the following command on the rpm, opens up the editor

rpmrebuild -e -p chrome-remote-desktop-81.0.4044.60-2.x86_64.rpm

• Remove the following lines and save the file.

%dir %attr(0755, root, root) "/"
%dir %attr(0755, root, root) "/etc/init.d"
%dir %attr(0755, root, root) "/usr/lib"

• In the terminal when it prompts, hit Y

Do you want to continue ? (y/N)

• The result is usually written out to a location like the following

result: /home/<username>/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64/chrome-remote-desktop-81.0.4044.60-2.x86_64.rpm

Finally install the rpm

$ sudo yum install /home/narenandu/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64/chrome-remote-desktop-81.0.4044.60-2.x86_64.rpm
[sudo] password for narenandu:
Last metadata expiration check: 2:29:18 ago on Fri 27 Mar 2020 09:58:57 AM PDT.
Dependencies resolved.
================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================
 Package                                                                   Architecture                                               Version                                                            Repository                                                        Size
================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================
Upgrading:
 chrome-remote-desktop                                                     x86_64                                                     81.0.4044.60-2                                                     @commandline                                                      28 M

Transaction Summary
================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================
Upgrade  1 Package

Total size: 28 M
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Downloading Packages:
Running transaction check
Transaction check succeeded.
Running transaction test
Transaction test succeeded.
Running transaction
  Preparing        :                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        1/1
  Running scriptlet: chrome-remote-desktop-81.0.4044.60-2.x86_64                                                                                                                                                                                                            1/1
  Upgrading        : chrome-remote-desktop-81.0.4044.60-2.x86_64                                                                                                                                                                                                            1/2
  Running scriptlet: chrome-remote-desktop-80.0.3987.132-1.fc31.x86_64                                                                                                                                                                                                      2/2
  Cleanup          : chrome-remote-desktop-80.0.3987.132-1.fc31.x86_64                                                                                                                                                                                                      2/2
  Running scriptlet: chrome-remote-desktop-80.0.3987.132-1.fc31.x86_64                                                                                                                                                                                                      2/2
Failed to try-restart chrome-remote-desktop@.service: Unit name chrome-remote-desktop@.service is missing the instance name.
See system logs and 'systemctl status chrome-remote-desktop@.service' for details.

  Verifying        : chrome-remote-desktop-81.0.4044.60-2.x86_64                                                                                                                                                                                                            1/2
  Verifying        : chrome-remote-desktop-80.0.3987.132-1.fc31.x86_64                                                                                                                                                                                                      2/2

Upgraded:
  chrome-remote-desktop-81.0.4044.60-2.x86_64

Complete!