Arch Linux User Repository

Hello all,

Kindly note: this packaging tracks the stable branch of helium-linux. Before marking this package out of date, please check the latest version here: https://github.com/imputnet/helium-linux/releases/latest. There can be anywhere from 10 minutes, up to a week (happened once) before upstream marks a release as "Latest."

If you wish to track the beta/pre-releases branch, you can use the helium-browser-beta-bin package.

Cheers,

Sam

Installing Helium's PGP key

==> Verifying source file signatures with gpg...
    helium-0.7.7.2-x86_64_linux.tar.xz ... FAILED (unknown public key 351601AD01D6378E)
==> ERROR: One or more PGP signatures could not be verified!

Since Helium 0.7.7.2 you will need Helium's PGP signature to verify the tarballs on install. This is a once off/once per system process.

• tl;dr: jump to step 3. Steps one and two exist simply to prove the key added to the PKGBUILD is legitimate (i.e., Helium's/Imputnet's), and how to manually import their key without a keyserver.

1. Get the key and signature. (Optional)

Obtain Helium's signing key from https://github.com/imputnet/helium-linux#signature and save the key to a file.

2. Verify the signature (Optional)

Run gpg --show-key /PATH/TO/helium_pub.asc. What returns should match the first comment of Helium's PGP key block, and the validpgpkeys entry in the PKGBUILD.

> gpg --show-key helium_pub.asc 
pub   ed25519 2025-10-11 [SC] [expires: 2028-10-10]
      BE677C1989D35EAB2C5F26C9351601AD01D6378E
uid                      Helium signing key (https://helium.computer/) <helium@imput.net>
sub   cv25519 2025-10-11 [E] [expires: 2028-10-10]

3. Install the key

• Option 1: source the key from upstream per step 1 and 2, and run:

gpg --import /path/to/helium_pub.asc

• Option 2: install from a public server:

gpg --keyserver hkps://keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys BE677C1989D35EAB2C5F26C9351601AD01D6378E

4. Verify the key install

> gpg --fingerprint BE677C1989D35EAB2C5F26C9351601AD01D6378E
pub   ed25519 2025-10-11 [SC] [expires: 2028-10-10]
      BE67 7C19 89D3 5EAB 2C5F  26C9 3516 01AD 01D6 378E
uid           [ unknown] Helium signing key (https://helium.computer/) <helium@imput.net>
sub   cv25519 2025-10-11 [E] [expires: 2028-10-10]

5. Install helium as normal

This is wrongly flagged out-of-date, 0.9.4.1 is marked as "latest" at the moment, 0.10.1.1 is still "pre-release".

Hello all,

Kindly note: this packaging tracks the stable branch of helium-linux. Before marking this package out of date, please check the latest version here: https://github.com/imputnet/helium-linux/releases/latest. There can be anywhere from 10 minutes, up to a week (happened once) before upstream marks a release as "Latest."

If you wish to track the beta/pre-releases branch, you can use the helium-browser-beta-bin package.

Cheers,

Sam

Hello everyone,

If you have the time it would be great to get some feedback for upstream on a testing branch. They are testing a renamed binary from chrome to helium[1] which should fix some window grouping issues previously observed by lbrooney on KDE/Wayland (see page 2 for discussion).

Any feedback here will be passed on to the Imputnet devs, or feel free to contribute to the discussion at the link below.

Instructions to test:

• Clone the test packaging branch: https://github.com/s6muel/helium-browser-bin/tree/test/renamed-binary
• Manually download the x86_64 artifact: https://github.com/imputnet/helium-linux/actions/runs/21152646245
  • Unzip it locally, and place the .tar.xz and .asc in the cloned directory.
• Install with makepkg -sirc

Thanks in advance!

Cheers,

Sam

[1] https://github.com/imputnet/helium-linux/issues/148#issuecomment-3770397492

Hello everyone,

Version 0.7.10.1 has some minor changes:

• added helium-browser-beta-bin to provides and conflicts[1]
• LICENSE.ungoogled_chromium moved from architecture sources to source

Sam

[1]: If you'd like to track beta/pre-releases, please see https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/helium-browser-beta-bin

Hello everyone,

Release 0.7.9.1-2 contains a minor fix of patch 0001 so that we now explicitly declare bash in the helium-wrapper.

Thanks very much to D3SOX for their help and review.

Sam

@playleft Edit: See my comment on the PR

D3SOX,

Thanks for bringing this up. I agree we should use #!/usr/bin/env bash and have created a public fork for testing: https://github.com/s6muel/helium-browser-bin/tree/fix/wrapper-shebang-bash

If you wouldn't mind I'd appreciate your (or other's) feedback or review before pushing this to the AUR.

Thanks also for your messages in the past, it's much appreciated.

EDIT: I should note my understanding for your error is the flags parsing logic is a bashism, and if ls -l /bin/sh isn't linked to bash (a default behaviour of Arch I think) the wrapper will throw errors. Happy to stand corrected or more informed on this point as well :)

Cheers,

Sam

Current version fails to start for me with /usr/bin/helium-browser: 20: Syntax error: "(" unexpected

After changing the first line from #!/bin/sh to #!/bin/bash it works again. Or I think this is better: #!/usr/bin/env bash

Installing Helium's PGP key

==> Verifying source file signatures with gpg...
    helium-0.7.7.2-x86_64_linux.tar.xz ... FAILED (unknown public key 351601AD01D6378E)
==> ERROR: One or more PGP signatures could not be verified!

Since Helium 0.7.7.2 you will need Helium's PGP signature to verify the tarballs on install. This is a once off/once per system process.

• tl;dr: jump to step 3. Steps one and two exist simply to prove the key added to the PKGBUILD is legitimate (i.e., Helium's/Imputnet's), and how to manually import their key without a keyserver.

1. Get the key and signature. (Optional)

Obtain Helium's signing key from https://github.com/imputnet/helium-linux#signature and save the key to a file.

2. Verify the signature (Optional)

Run gpg --show-key /PATH/TO/helium_pub.asc. What returns should match the first comment of Helium's PGP key block, and the validpgpkeys entry in the PKGBUILD.

> gpg --show-key helium_pub.asc 
pub   ed25519 2025-10-11 [SC] [expires: 2028-10-10]
      BE677C1989D35EAB2C5F26C9351601AD01D6378E
uid                      Helium signing key (https://helium.computer/) <helium@imput.net>
sub   cv25519 2025-10-11 [E] [expires: 2028-10-10]

3. Install the key

• Option 1: source the key from upstream per step 1 and 2, and run:

gpg --import /path/to/helium_pub.asc

• Option 2: install from a public server:

gpg --keyserver hkps://keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys BE677C1989D35EAB2C5F26C9351601AD01D6378E

4. Verify the key install

> gpg --fingerprint BE677C1989D35EAB2C5F26C9351601AD01D6378E
pub   ed25519 2025-10-11 [SC] [expires: 2028-10-10]
      BE67 7C19 89D3 5EAB 2C5F  26C9 3516 01AD 01D6 378E
uid           [ unknown] Helium signing key (https://helium.computer/) <helium@imput.net>
sub   cv25519 2025-10-11 [E] [expires: 2028-10-10]

5. Install helium as normal

Hello everyone,

Version 0.7.7.2 is a major update and accommodates upstream Linux packaging that now includes a helium-wrapper[1] in prebuilt tarballs and introduces tarball signatures. This requires you to install their PGP key prior to installation. Instructions are in the pinned comment.

• Major changes ::
  • Helium/Imputnet's PGP key[2] added to validpgpkeys()
  • The entry point at /usr/bin/helium-browser is now a symlink to /opt/helium-browser-bin/helium-wrapper (the upstream wrapper)
  • Modifications to the included wrapper and .desktop entry are now implemented via patches:
    • 0001-update-wrapper-arch.patch
      • set CHROME_VERSION_EXTRA to "Arch Linux"
      • adds system, user, and environment flags support
      • sanitises std{in,out,err} inline with Chromium upstream
    • 0002-align-desktop-entry.patch
      • appends browser to helium where necessary
  • .asc signatures included in x86_64 and aarch64 sources
• Minor changes
  • PKGBUILD options now only requires !strip[3]
  • Previously bundled helium-browser.sh removed in favour of upstream's version

If you have any issues, please let me know.

Cheers,

Sam

P.S.: I'm currently looking into the rename and am leaning towards that. Will provide updates prior to and during the migration in the future. Feedback on this move is still welcome :)

[1] https://github.com/imputnet/helium-linux/pull/149

[2] https://github.com/imputnet/helium-linux#signature

[3] https://github.com/imputnet/helium-linux/pull/151