Adobe Flash Player 9 Beta For Linux Released

[Michael]

Adobe has released the public's first Beta of the Linux Flash Player 9!

Penguin.SWF Blog: http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2006/10/beta_is_live.html

DOWNLOAD: http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer9.html

Release Notes: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer9/releasenotes.html

Be sure to share your Linux Flash Player 9 experiences. Some previous information can be found in this thread (http://www.phoronix.net/forums/showthread.php?t=123).

Edit: No word on x86_64 support with this release.

[Michael]

Here are some shots of the standalone Adobe Flash Player 9 running on Fedora Core 5. One apparent bug I have run into is a multitude of issues with YouTube and the standalone player -- seem to be presented with ALSA conflicts and then it ultimately will crash.

http://www.phoronix.com/misc/flash9_1.jpg

http://www.phoronix.com/misc/flash9_2.jpg

http://www.phoronix.com/misc/flash9_3.jpg

[ltmon]

Do the following to install on (K)Ubuntu 6.06 if you already have Flash 7 installed:

tar xvjf FP9_plugin_beta_101806.tar.gz
cd flash-player-plugin-9.0.21.55/
sudo cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/
sudo cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree/libflashplayer.so
sudo cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/
cp libflashplayer.so ~/.mozilla/plugins/

This got it working straight away for Firefox and Konqueror.

My biggest issue so far is that I couldn't get it to print: it simply pops up a javascript "Your print job has been sent to the default printer" and nothing else happens. I guess no real print dialogue has been implemented... or possibly I'm missing some sort of dependency for it.

If I can get this working acceptably then our company's clients can save some $$$ in Windows licences when we set up a kiosk/POS application for them.

L.

[niniendowarrior]

The plugin doesn't load on Opera but I'm cool with that.

It loads on Firefox and that's enough for me.

[1c3d0g]

About f*cking time, Adobe. This was really, really needed. Now I'm going to save this file *everywhere*, in case they decide to stop development. There may not be another update for a very long time.

Sigh...this dependence on one stinking corporation to move its lazy ass and release an update to their proprietary software really pisses me off. :mad:

[KohlyKohl]

ESPN360.com works well, but the video player on ESPN.com doesn't not work at all. Cannot get the battlestar webisodes to work on scifi.com.

[niniendowarrior]

About f*cking time, Adobe. This was really, really needed. Now I'm going to save this file *everywhere*, in case they decide to stop development. There may not be another update for a very long time.

Sigh...this dependence on one stinking corporation to move its lazy ass and release an update to their proprietary software really pisses me off. :mad:

Hey 1c3d0g... I know it's awfully difficult for all of us to have dependence on a single source for updates. But, I think instead of viewing it in that light, we should be thankful they provided us an update. Who knows? This might have been an act of generosity from Adobe and not from the guys in Macromedia who ignored us after Flash Player 7.

[Rob Williams]

Ahh it's about time. Thanks for the screenshots Michael.

[James]

It works quite well. Audio and video seem to be in synch now.

[niniendowarrior]

The Flash player plugin crashes everytime I go to Comedy Central videos section and if I try to search on ESPN. *shrugs*

I guess that's why I still have Flash Player 7 running on another browser. I'm still ecstatic about having 9 here.

[KohlyKohl]

Yeah its great to have it. Only bad thing is most of the videos still won't play. Really, ESPN360 is about the only site I've had an real success with, and nike's website works perfectly.

[Michael]

Update on 64-bit support: http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2006/10/whats_so_difficult_64bit_editi.html

[1c3d0g]

It's probably to be expected that a Beta 64-bit version won't be released until *at least* Q4 2007, judging from the tone of the post. You know, this whole issue really shows the weaknesses of Closed Source apps. It took many years for Adobe/Macromedia to update their player to the latest version, and a 64-bit version is still MIA. If these apps were Open Source, none of this bullsh!t would've been necessary in the first place.

[colo]

I boycott (read: don't use and advise others to not use it, too) because of its non-free nature. I'm getting along really well, though. Most CONTENT transported by Flash is useless b$ anyways, and if there really happens to be an interesting video or whatnot, well - mplayer plays back FLV just fine.

Flash on my box? Won't happen until the release of Gnash, I suppose...

[Michael]

Has anyone tried out the Gnash CVS lately?

[1c3d0g]

No, unfortunately I'm still stuck with a piss-poor box (my main PC died last week) running Xubuntu, and you know how nasty it gets when I try to compile anything on this distro.

[niniendowarrior]

Adobe has released an experimental extension framework for developers to add features on top of the Flash Player 9.

http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2006/10/not_completely_open_source_but.html#comments

[1c3d0g]

Good, good. This looks like a step forward.

[KohlyKohl]

After upgrading Firefox to 2.0, seems that flash player 9 is working alot better. I can now view scifi's content, as well as watch Episodes from abc, cbs, and nbc. If you haven't checked out those sites, do because they are worth it for FP9 support alone.

[Michael]

http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2006/11/beta_ii_the_audio_fix.html

Linux Flash 9 Beta 2 is out -- mainly fixes audio problems.

[Rob Williams]

Thanks for the update Michael. I was hoping for a new version since I've been running into a lot of quirky bugs lately, hopefully they are slightly better in this one.

It still has a lot of work to go though.

[giorgosts]

Flash 9.0.21.78 plugin works perfectly on Opera 9.02 on my Ubuntu 6.10 system.

[Michael]

Now out of Beta!

http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash

[1c3d0g]

Finally! :D