If I run 'chrome/tools/build/make_zip.py out/Release/ chrome/tools/build/linux/FILES.cfg linux.zip', the archive contains swiftshader/libEGL.so and swiftshader/libGLESv2.so as expected. So I'm not sure why they're missing from the beta package.

These files are being built and included in the build archives (chrome-linux64.zip), but that does not automatically add them to the .deb and .rpm files. For that, you need to modify the packaging scripts in:

https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git/+/master/chrome/installer/linux/

Note that there already are some versions of those files being installed:

https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git/+/master/chrome/installer/linux/common/installer.include#166

I'm not sure how the swiftshader files relate to those, but if they both exist in the build, you might need to add some extra logic to resolve the conflict.

Thanks for the pointers!

Yes, the existing libEGL.so and libGLESv2.so are for ANGLE, which uses the GPU for rendering. SwiftShader is a fallback which uses the CPU instead, and its libraries are under the swiftshader/ directory to keep them separate.

The following revision refers to this bug:
  https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git/+/8762c915f746100704a494b9dd09075030e77906

commit 8762c915f746100704a494b9dd09075030e77906
Author: capn <capn@chromium.org>
Date: Tue May 09 04:45:00 2017

Add SwiftShader libraries to Linux installer package.

BUG= 719507 

Review-Url: https://codereview.chromium.org/2868873003
Cr-Commit-Position: refs/heads/master@{#470221}

[modify] https://crrev.com/8762c915f746100704a494b9dd09075030e77906/chrome/installer/linux/common/installer.include

Maybe a bit late, but what is the reason we don't statically link libEGL.so and libGLESv2.so?

The short answer is, because that's how OpenGL works.

Chrome can choose to load ANGLE's implementation, or SwiftShader's, or Mesa's, or whatever driver your system provides. Reversely you can literally copy SwiftShader's or ANGLE's libraries out of the Chrome directory and run other OpenGL ES applications with it.

Dynamic linking provides a strong guarantee that we're not depending on anything implementation specific (unless through Khronos ratified API extensions). It gives us flexibility in swapping between different implementations.

That said, there's an ongoing effort to statically link ANGLE. But ANGLE is different in that it loads another driver implementation as the back-end, translating OpenGL ES to either Direct3D or "desktop" OpenGL or another OpenGL ES implementation. The idea is that Chrome only needs to speak OpenGL ES, and ANGLE takes care of providing consistency between platforms, even if the native graphics driver is also OpenGL ES. So Chrome would no longer directly load the driver libraries, and since it will always pass all graphics commands to ANGLE it makes sense to statically link it.

In this upcoming architecture SwiftShader will still be one of several driver implementations that can be loaded by ANGLE, so they'll remain shared libraries for the foreseeable future.

This will need to be merged into M59 to unblock b/37890144.

Cherry-pick to branch 3071 (linux-beta-m59) for review: https://codereview.chromium.org/2870753004

Your change meets the bar and is auto-approved for M59. Please go ahead and merge the CL to branch 3071 manually. Please contact milestone owner if you have questions.
Owners: amineer@(Android), cmasso@(iOS), gkihumba@(ChromeOS), Abdul Syed@(Desktop)

For more details visit https://www.chromium.org/issue-tracking/autotriage - Your friendly Sheriffbot

The following revision refers to this bug:
  https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git/+/12037bf2488b1b3a57a622f52328f1c79ede7164

commit 12037bf2488b1b3a57a622f52328f1c79ede7164
Author: capn <capn@chromium.org>
Date: Wed May 10 14:34:51 2017

Add SwiftShader libraries to Linux installer package.

BUG= 719507 

TBR=mmoss@chromium.org
NOTRY=true
NOPRESUBMIT=true

(cherry picked from commit 8762c915f746100704a494b9dd09075030e77906)

Review-Url: https://codereview.chromium.org/2870753004
Cr-Commit-Position: refs/branch-heads/3071@{#501}
Cr-Branched-From: a106f0abbf69dad349d4aaf4bcc4f5d376dd2377-refs/heads/master@{#464641}

[modify] https://crrev.com/12037bf2488b1b3a57a622f52328f1c79ede7164/chrome/installer/linux/common/installer.include