Update on Adobe Linux Flash Player

[niniendowarrior]

Mike responded to the Digg report on the Linux Flash Player Stoppage.

Here's an excerpt...

Following up on yesterday's issues, remember that Flash does things that are not strictly multimedia related. All the multimedia stuff -- the A/V output, the A/V input -- we have that pretty well nailed down, though it does pop back up every so often. The problem that had me stopped was unrelated to audio or video. I'm not going to re-hash the details because it's extremely tedious and because I have already spent the last 2 days explaining it to anyone who would listen.

I came up with a solution. So I am back in today to implement it, since I basically lost all of yesterday to my main dev box. Yeah, I finally fixed that too, and without having to jump distros.


Read the whole post here.

http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2006/07/bedraggled_earlobe_hammer.html

[Rob Williams]

If anything, I'd love to see Dreamweaver support on Linux. It runs through wine 'semi-reliably', but a native version would be so much better.

Anyways, I am a noob here. What exactly is the problem with the Flash player in Linux? Are these people talking about the dev tools? I've never had an issue with Flash ever, that I can recall at least.

[shoegoo]

What exactly is the problem with the Flash player in Linux? Are these people talking about the dev tools? I've never had an issue with Flash ever, that I can recall at least.


Adobe (and before them, Macromedia) haven't updated flash player since version 7. Flash 7 is of course 32-bit (I am guessing it came out around the time or right before the first Opteron processors were coming out). Basically those of us running 64-bit Linux can't use 64-Bit Firefox with flash. Also, websites are slowly moving away from Flash 7 towards the newer 8 and 9 technology leaving us all in the dark. Anyway, Adobe and Macromedia have been promising an updated Flash player for years now and have not delivered. It keeps getting delayed for one reason or another. The blog linked to above is written by (I think) the only developer they have working on the project. He posted a few days ago that he was having a hard time making progress, which made many people unhappy, especially since Flash 9 was released recently for Windows and a universal binary for OS X quickly followed.

[Rob Williams]

Oh ok, thanks for the info. I had never run into an issue personally before, so I didn't have clue. I guess I had not been using a 64-Bit version of Firefox in the past, because I didn't note any issues in SuSE 64-Bit when I used it recently.

[niniendowarrior]

Penguin.SWF is written by one of the developers in the team working on Flash Player 9 on Linux. The blog post above informs us that the development is back on track, the author responding to the story that the Flash Player stoppage news may bring down the final nail to the Linux support coffin.

Most websites use Flash 8, which is why the Flash Linux update is good news, at least to me. Adobe opted to skip Flash 8 and work on Flash 9 instead though... although most users want Flash 8.

[Michael]

x86_64 Flash support is one of the things I am most looking forward too :)

[Michael]

http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2006/07/api_review_1.html

[Rob Williams]

Ok, now I see what part of the problem is. Replaced the 32-Bit version of Gentoo with the 64-Bit on my Intel... I think I am going to stick to 32-Bit on my main rig. The lack of flash would really take the comfort out of web surfing...

[Rob Williams]

Finally, here's a hopeful post:

Things are going swimmingly right now. As in, I can play multiple Flash videos in multiple Firefox browser tabs with nary a crash nor a thread hang. In fact, I'm feeling so confident about the stability that I'm actually composing this entry while a YouTube music video plays in another tab. Nervously, but still.

I am thinking about the next level-- creating a single binary that can work reliably across multiple Linux distributions. I know this may sound simple, but there are problems that can crop up, which we have been dealing with one by one. This afternoon, I created a build and tried it across several Linux installations we have handy around the office. Here is the success report:

* Gentoo- naturally, since that's the build machine
* Ubuntu
* Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
* SuSE Linux 10.1

I won't bother you with the details of which distros did not work in this impromptu test for fear of starting rumors that we don't plan to support those distros. The task now is to make those distros work just as well.

http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2006/08/across_the_distros_1.html

[1c3d0g]

About damn time. that's all I'm going to say here. I've had enough flamewars over this Flash issue already.

[James]

Excellent. Will there be amd64 support?

[Rob Williams]

It's hard to say... he didn't address the question in any of the comments. I hope there would be... I can't understand why there wouldn't be...

[Michael]

There should [finally!] be x86_64 support with this upcoming Linux version of Flash.

[Rob Williams]

That would be great Michael... and about time. I will probably make my move to 64-Bit on my main machine when that happens. I personally am looking forward to better support in general. I often visit websites that won't function properly due to an older flash version.

Only a matter of time now...

[niniendowarrior]

This should be encouraging developments on the Adobe Flash Player 9 for Linux.

A *BIG* hug to Adobe!

http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2006/08/across_the_distros.html

[niniendowarrior]

Further developments. This is definitely good news. Soon we will have that shiny Flash Player 9 on Linux!

http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2006/08/coarse_detail.html

[Rob Williams]

Yes... can't wait. It's about time, I can say that much. I've recently been emulating the Windows version of Firefox with Flash 9 plugin, and I can say it's actually reliable. It's going to be great to have a native version though.

[Rob Williams]

Here is (http://blogs.zdnet.com/Stewart/?p=96) an interview with the lead engineer of the Linux Flash dept. He did not mention anything regarding a 64-Bit version, so it's looking sketchy there.

He did casually mention that it's a feature people could request, but I find it bizarre that people would need to request it. It's obvious that it's wanted. :rolleyes:

[Michael]

http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2006/08/basic_beta_briefing.html

Looks like a Beta will be out soon, and the final release to come in Q1'07.

[Michael]

First Screenshot of Flash Player 9 on Linux: http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/flash-file-upload.png

[Michael]

List of libraries needed for Linux Flash Player 9 is posted @ http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2006/09/librarian.html

[Michael]

Some additional information on a pre-release of the Linux Flash Player 9 @ http://www.cayambe.com/wordpress/?p=68

[Michael]

Yet another update @ http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2006/10/chatter.html

There is chatter about an impending beta release of the Linux Flash Player. I'm not allowed to confirm or deny any dates. But the Flash Player project manager mentioned, "QE has not skipped a beat and is starting the beta certification of the Linux player which will go live on Adobe Labs when it passes the certification tests." The optimist Ryan Stewart predicted earlier this week that he expects the beta to go live next week, but later revised the estimate to 2 weeks.

:)