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 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 10, 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, follow 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.

Installation

Browse Activity

1. Make sure you are connected to the Internet

2. Start the Terminal Activity

3. Retrieve and install latest working version (as of December 2008, version 10.0.15.3) of Adobe Flash Player for the Browse Activity:

su -l
wget http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/flash-plugin-10.0.15.3-release.i386.rpm
rpm -i flash-plugin-10.0.15.3-release.i386.rpm
exit

4. Check to ensure that Flash is installed properly.

Browse to the Adobe Flash Browser Version Test.

The Version should be LNX not GSH, indicating that Adobe Flash is handling the .swf content. You can still run gnash from the Terminal Activity.

Note: in releases prior to release 8.2.0, to avoid conflicts between the Gnash and Adobe Flash plugins you needed to remove gnash with the following commands:

su -l
yum remove gnash gnash-plugin

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.

Uninstallation

Linux RPM removal:

• In the Terminal Activity
• At the # prompt, type

su -l
rpm -e flash-plugin
exit

Click to Play

To automatically run Flash applets without seeing the gray Click to play prompt placeholder boxes when playing flash in the browser, move two files by typing the following in the Terminal Activity:

For current builds i.e. 767 (aka XO OS 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 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: (PDS Note in build 703 /usr/share/activities looks like it's moved to /home/olpc/Activities)(Note 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

Opera Browser

• The latest version of Adobe Flash is not fully compatible with the Sugarized Opera 9.12 OLPC Edition activity but runs fine with the newer non-Sugarized Opera 9.6x general linux builds. To install an Opera 9.12-compatible Adobe Flash plugin, follow the standard installation instructions for the Browse Activity replacing the url with http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/flash-plugin-9.0.48.0-release.i386.rpm to use the older version.

• 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.

Flash-intensive Sites

The XO Browse Activity is loaded with Gnash, a Free and Open Source Software that is compatible with Flash applications up to version 8.x (which uses the Actionscript Virtual Machine 1 that run Actionscript 1 & 2.0 code), but sites like Webkinz requires at least Adobe Flash version 9.0 which runs the new Actionscript Virtual Machine 2 (AVM2) that uses Actionscript 3.0 code.

Please note that Webkinz.com, Disney.com and other popular children's websites are generally geared towards systems that have a lot of disk space for the browser cache, while the XO only has a total storage of 1GB. Please be aware that successive uses of these sites may quickly fill up your free storage.

Also, visting sites like Papervision3D.org and the FlashSandy.org which use software 3D engines on Adobe Flash 9+ may freeze your browser and your machine. Avoid CPU & memory intensive sites such as those that run on software Flash 3D Engines.

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

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

  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

See the full Gnash article.

Adobe Flash has been reported to conflict with Gnash before; but this has not been reproduced recently. 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).

With build 8.2.0 of the XO OS, Adobe Flash & Gnash generally co-exist peacefully, with the Adobe Flash plugin running in the browser and Gnash able to run outside the browser in stand-alone mode.

Some notes on Gnash:

• Gnash 0.8.2 that comes with 711 has problems with AS-driven dynamic text rotation/positioning
• Gnash 0.8.3 that comes with 8.20 builds the above problem, but still has some Adobe Flash 7 & 8 sound bug incompatibilities.