Adobe Flash

  For the general public

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This page is about Adobe Flash, a proprietary player for Flash media. For the free software player that comes with each XO, see Gnash.

Overview

This page describes third-party software that does not meet the OLPC standards for software freedom. The use of such software is unsupported; OLPC does not endorse or encourage its use.

Adobe Flash 9.x, a Restricted Format can be installed for both the Browse Activity and the Opera activity. This installation must be repeated after any Update.

To install the latest version of Adobe Flash, which plays a larger variety of Flash pages, by following the installation instructions.

To check which version of Adobe Flash is installed for your browser, take the Adobe Flash Browser Version Test. The version should show LNX not GSH.

Flash files are not played by default when a website is opened; you need to click on the flash window to load flash. The Click to Play can be disabled.

Webkinz.com

Webkinz.com and other Flash-intensive sites can be accessed with the XO Browse activity after some careful modifications to the XO's Sugar environment. These modifications must be repeated after every upgrade.

The XO Browse Activity is loaded with Gnash, a Free and Open Source Software that is compatible with Flash Applications to version 8.x, but Webkinz requires Adobe Flash version 9.0 or later.

Please note that Webkinz.com, Disney.com and other popular children's website generally require browser computers to have more than 1GB of free disk space, while the XO has a total of 1GB. Please be aware that successive uses of these sites may quickly fill up your free memory.

(Note to authors: please explain where and how to reclaim the memory you are referencing)

In addition, many of these sites only support Microsoft operating systems.

To successfully access Webkinz:

1. Close all Activities
2. Ensure that the XO is connected to the internet
3. Install Adobe Flash, and follow the advanced instructions to disable Click to Play
4. Disable Gnash
5. Reboot the XO

For best performance, wait until the Flash module is fully loaded before using the module.

Installation

Browse Activity

1. Make sure you are connected to the Internet

2. Open the "Terminal Activity". Note: there are ways to cut-and-paste the text commands on this page from a web page into the Terminal activity. See Pasting Text from a web page into the terminal (Note: this likely reqires an external 3-button mouse.).

3. Retrieve and install latest working version (version 115) of Adobe Flash for the Browse Activity. Version 115 does not work with Opera on the XO.

su -l
wget flash90124.notlong.com
rpm -i flash-plugin-9.0.124.0-release.i386.rpm
exit

• http://flash90124.notlong.com is simply an alias for http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/flash-plugin-9.0.124.0-release.i386.rpm for ease of typing.

4. Check to ensure that Flash is installed properly.

Browse to the Adobe Flash Browser Version Test.

The Version should be LNX not GSH.

See http://www.abdulqabiz.com/blog/archives/flash_and_actionscript/flash_player_trust_f.php for hints on how to disable security questions popping up when using content from the drive rather than the internet.

Alternative: an automatic script

Alternatively, you can also use an installation script to install Adobe Flash v. 9.0.48.0 on your XO. However, this has not been thoroughly tested, and will not install the very latest version.

To uninstall

1. open the Terminal activity;

2. remove flashplayer by typing:

su -l
yum remove flash-plugin-9.0.124.0-release
exit

Advanced options

  For Developers

Opera

The latest version of Adobe Flash is not fully compatible with the Opera activity. To install Adobe Flash for Opera, follow the standard installation instructions for the Browse Activity replacing 115 in the file names with 48 to use the older version.

Click to Play

To avoid the Click to play prompt when playing flash in the browser, remove two files by typing the following in the Terminal:

su -l
cd /usr/share/activities/Web.activity
mkdir bak
mv agent-stylesheet.css bak
mv clickToView.xml  bak
exit

undo using Terminal:

su -l
cd /usr/share/activities/Web.activity/bak
cp agent-stylesheet.css ..
cp clickToView.xml ..
exit

NEWBIES (like me): This works like a charm to get rid of the double Flash elements on each page, but remember: text entered in the terminal is CaSe SEnsITiVe.

  For Developers

Older versions of flash are available here:

http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/installers/archive/fp9_archive.zip

Information about how to load other restricted formats is found here.

Gnash

Adobe Flash has been reported to conflict sometimes with Gnash; but this has not been reproduced. If you have a site that works for you with Adobe Flash installed but not with both Adobe and Gnash installed, please describe this in detail on the talk page here (after doublechecking the version of flash your browser seems to be running).

What's happened to me is still more different. After re-installing Adobe Flash which seemed to be overridden with gnash after uploading to 653, when I tested the flash version it continued to show GSH. I uninstalled gnash, then no response when I clicked on a flash element. I then reinstalled gnash and verified that Adobe flash still appeared to be installed, but the same effect -- no flash capability at all.