The open source Chromium project, which serves as the basis for Google's Chrome web browser, has reached alpha status on the Linux platform. Ars takes a look at the Linux port's progress and functionality.

When Google's Chrome web browser debuted with much fanfare last year, it was Windows-only and not cross-platform compatible. The developers soon began working on Linux and Mac OS X ports of the browser's underlying open source Chromium code base. These ports are beginning to mature and could soon be ready for regular users.

We took a look at the Mac OS X port of Chromium a few months ago, but the Linux port was still barely functional at the time. A lot of progress has been made since then and the Linux version is now in the alpha stage. We tested it on Ubuntu 9.04 to see how it compares with the latest release of Chrome for Windows. There are still missing features and lots of rendering bugs, but it is clearly moving in the right direction.

More: http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/05/hands-on-google-chromium-browser-alpha-for-linux.ars