Adobe Flash

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  For the general public

This page is part of the XO Support FAQ.     Support Index | Print This Page

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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 is a Restricted Format. A free software player Gnash comes with each XO laptop, but does not work with all web pages, because not all web sites have taken care to make sure that Gnash works.

Adobe Flash Player is a proprietary player for Adobe Flash media. Adobe Flash Player plays a larger variety of Flash media than Gnash, but has license restrictions that prevent easy distribution. More information on Adobe Flash Player can be found on the Adobe Flash Player web site.

Overview

Adobe Flash Player can be added during build, for all laptop models, subject to permission from Adobe. Adding during build is the method supported by OLPC.

Adobe Flash Player is not included in OLPC OS, because of the restrictions on redistribution. But it can be added.

Both Adobe and OLPC provide an Adobe Flash Player plugin, depending on the model of laptop:

• XO-1; Adobe provide a player, follow the instructions for XO-1,
• XO-1.5; Adobe provide a player, follow the instructions for XO-1.5,
• XO-1.75; OLPC provide a player, negotiate with OLPC regarding the payment of Marvell license fees for video drivers, then follow the instructions for XO-1.75,
• XO-4; OLPC provide a player, follow the instructions for XO-4, because OLPC has paid the Marvell license fees.

Checking Version

To check which version is installed, visit the Adobe Flash Browser Version Test.

Installation on XO-1.75 and XO-4

OLPC support will provide a libflashplayer.so at the same time as providing access to the video drivers.

• download and install the video drivers,
• copy the libflashplayer.so file to the XO-1.75 or XO-4,
• start the Terminal Activity,
• copy the plugin, paste this:

sudo cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so

• wrap the plugin, paste this:

yum -y install nspluginwrapper && \
/usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/npconfig -n \
    -p nswrapper_32_32 \
    -d /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins-wrapped \
    -i /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so

• start Browse and check version.

Installation on XO-1 and XO-1.5

On Browse activity, Flash media is not played immediately; click on the media to start playing. The Click to Play can be disabled.

How to download and install Adobe Flash Player, on Sugar 0.82 and later:

• Make sure the XO is connected to the Internet,
• Start the Terminal Activity,
• download and install the plugin, paste this:

wget http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/pdc/11.2.202.251/flash-plugin-11.2.202.251-release.i386.rpm && \
sudo rpm -U flash-plugin-*.rpm

• (our link to the Adobe Flash Player is occasionally broken by Adobe when a new release occurs, to find the current one go to get.adobe.com and complete the prompts.)

• Wait for the rpm command to complete. On XO-1.5 this may take a minute or so.
• in OLPC OS 12.1.0 or later, wrap the plugin, paste this:

yum -y install nspluginwrapper && \
/usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/npconfig -n \
    -p nswrapper_32_32 \
    -d /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins-wrapped \
    -i /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so

• in OLPC OS 8.2.0 or earlier, and in 11.2.0, to avoid conflicts between the Gnash and Adobe Flash plugins, remove Gnash, paste this:

sudo yum remove -y gnash gnash-plugin

• Stop Terminal,
• Stop Browse,
• Start Browse, and check that Flash is working properly: open the page Adobe Flash Browser Version Test.

See hints on how to disable security questions popping up when using local content.

This installation must be repeated after any Update.

Click to Play

To automatically run Flash applets without seeing the Click to play prompt, move two files by typing the following in the Terminal Activity:

• For current builds, i.e. 767 (aka release 8.2.0)

cd /home/olpc/Activities/Browse.activity

mkdir bak

mv agent-stylesheet.css bak/.

mv clickToView.xml bak/.

To undo using Terminal:

cd /home/olpc/Activities/Browse.activity/bak

cp agent-stylesheet.css ../.

cp clickToView.xml ../.

• For Sugar-on-a-Stick builds, e.g. Blueberry v2 (aka Sugar 0.86.3)

cd /home/liveuser/Activities/Browse.activity

mkdir bak

mv agent-stylesheet.css bak/.

mv clickToView.xml bak/.

To undo using Terminal:

cd /home/liveuser/Activities/Browse.activity/bak

cp agent-stylesheet.css ../.

cp clickToView.xml ../.

• For really old builds: (if this applies to you, you really should update!)

su -l

cd /usr/share/activities/Web.activity

mkdir bak

mv agent-stylesheet.css bak/.

mv clickToView.xml bak/.

To undo using Terminal:

su -l

cd /usr/share/activities/Web.activity/bak/

cp agent-stylesheet.css ../.

cp clickToView.xml ../.

Notes: In build 703 /usr/share/activities looks like it's moved to /home/olpc/Activities while in build 711 it looks like it's /home/olpc/Activities/Web.activity

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.

Advanced options

  For Developers

Flash-heavy Sites

Note that media-rich and script-heavy Flash media can be very taxing on the CPU and may perform poorly.

The XO Browse Activity is loaded with Gnash, a Free and Open Source Software that is compatible with Flash 8. A number of sites, however, require at least Adobe Flash version 9 and higher running the newer Actionscript Virtual Machine 2 (AVM2) and Actionscript 3.0 code.

To successfully access sites that require Adobe Flash 9 and above:

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. optional: Disable Gnash
5. Reboot the XO

• Please note that a lot of websites such as popular children's sites Webkinz.com (Flash 9+ required) and Disney.com are generally geared towards systems that have a lot of free disk space for browser cache files. The XO only has a total storage of 1GB so be aware that successive use of these sites may quickly fill up your free storage.

• Also note that the Browse and Firefox activities zoom-in pages by default to improve readability. Because of this, Flash applets are artificially scaled up above native resolution and the CPU is taxed even more because more pixels have to be rendered by Flash. Zooming out or using a browser that runs at native resolution like Opera will improve performance.

• Additional performance increase at the sacrifice of visual quality may be gained by running Flash in low-quality mode. This may be achieved by right-clicking on the flash applet to access the context menu, then selecting QUALITY -> Low. Note that a lot of Flash applets disable the right-click context menu.

A forum thread at the following URL documents a workaround that will start the Adobe Flash plugin in low-quality mode by default: http://www.olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=845.msg7429 note that the guide was written with Flash 9 in mind and has been documented to crash the browser on Flash 10: http://www.olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=3804.0

Flash Video

Installing the latest version of Adobe Flash will allow users to run sites like Youtube.com and GoogleVideo.com and play Flash Video. Note however that decoding video is a CPU-intensive activity. Due to the XO's limited CPU, Flash Video will play at very low framerates. Sound in general will play at full speed. Running Flash in low-quality mode (detailed in the previous section) may improve Flash Video performance.

Flash 3D

3D in Flash is achieved via software rendering and is not hardware accelerated. Because of this, 3D in Flash is very CPU and memory-intensive, and the XO's limited 433MHz CPU and 256MB RAM may not be able to cope.

Visiting sites that use Flash 3D engines such as Papervision3D.org, the demo pages of FlashSandy.org and AlternativaPlatform.com may freeze the browser *AND* the entire machine thus requiring a reboot.

Because of this, avoid visiting sites which make use of 3D in Flash.

Webcam Support

Support for the XO's built-in camera seems to be problematic.

In both the Browse Activity and Opera browser:

• Browsing Flash apps that use the webcam will turn on the indicator light above the webcam
• Flash 9 shows just a black screen
• Flash 10 shows red and green static which reacts to motion. This means the camera is working, but isn't talking quite correctly with Flash.
• Tested on Update.1 711

More information may be found here: http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=3676.0

Issues with Adobe Flash

See the main article on issues with Adobe Flash.

Related Articles

• Gnash the open source Flash player pre-installed with the XO
• Adobe AIR on the OLPC XO

Notes

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