Talk:Adobe Flash

Under 10.1.3

I have installed 10.1.3 in two OLPCs. When I switch to GNOME, I see that Firefox (FF) is the default browser (visible in the top menu). When I launch FF i am urged to install 3.6 but i have been told to ignore that (see 10.1.3 Release notes > discussion). A particularly useful web site which worked once on the XO under Sugar>browse, but no longer does is:

speakeasy.net/speedtest

When i open it, it displays nothing but "Seattle" and is unresponsive. This site is very dependent on FlashPlayer. Apparently Gnash doesn't work properly.

Another site is PMUG.us (a MAC user website). Under "about us" I am advised my flash player is out of date and to download latest version of flash.

I have gone to the Adobe Website and am advised to download Flash. I am given choices; I chose and downloaded and have in my Download - File Browser window (shown in order Name Size Type Date Modified)

(folder symbol)install_flash_player_10_linux.tar.gz 4.7 MB Tar archive (gzip-compressed) Fri 18 Feb 2011 10:16:46 AM GMT

If i double click the above, Archive Manager launches and i see (file symbol) libflashplayer.so 11.6 MB shared 05 February 2011 9:14

If i double-click that i get "Extracting Files from Archive" then there is an "Open Files" window with two boxes Available "applications": and "Recent applications". There is nothing in either box.

I do not know what to do to install Flash Player. That was my first try. I don't know if i made the right choice in the download version from Adobe. Since some of the previous entries mention "YUM" perhaps that was the one to use. I feel this is very important in making the OLPC XO completely useful.

(by the way: If i click "Help"> about in the tool menu, i get "About the File Roller "File Roller 2.26.3" an archive manager for GNOME". If i click Contents F1, i get "Could not display help Failed to execute child process "gnome-help"(No such file or directory). THAT ISN'T MUCH HELP. )

So what should be a (more or less) simple step-by-step procedure goes nowhere.

Hope i didn't make an error in putting this first: I notice that the last previous entry appears to be dated in 2009. Somebody knowledgeable needs to address this. At this edit, i can only document what i see and what i do. What i do next is missing:)

--Generalludd 00:19, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

The instructions for installing at Adobe Flash - Firefox Browser (on GNOME) work fine for me on 10.1.3. Please follow them. --Quozl 04:25, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Quozl - I'll check them out, however I got it working fine as the next section describes. I'll see how they compare. I also obtained the Epiphany browser from the Fedora site, installed it, and it works fine. Judging from its flash performance I think it is faster than Firefox. --Generalludd 23:18, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Is this because Firefox scales the image? Measure the image size and compare between two browsers. --Quozl 01:13, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

It turned out easier than it looked.

FlashPlayer 9 is now running on the laptop under Gnome and either Epiphany or Firefox. Epiphany appears to be the faster browser.

1. Start by getting the rpm file on your desktop (in whatever way—I put it on a usb stick from a Mac, then plugged the stick into the XO, then copied it to the desktop). It will show up as a file symbol titled: Adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm

2. Hover the mouse over the symbol and name,then copy (shift-ctrl-c)

3. Go to applications>System Tools>Terminal and click. When the terminal window appears you will see the prompt [olpc@xo-11-52-f1 -] $ and a flashing black rectangle

4. type: su – , and you will see the prompt [root@xo-11-52-f1 -] # and a flashing black rectangle

5. type: rpm –Uvh (don’t forget the space after h)

6. then paste Shift-ctrl-v keys and you will see the following filled in:

file:///home/olpc/Desktop/flash-plugin-9.0.48.0-release.i386.rpm (by the way that answers the "navigate to the desktop" problem)

7 Now press enter and wait …Text will appear and the installation will complete with a remark about older flash files being removed and stored (somewhere) as a tarball, etc. which can be removed. Then the prompt of step 4

8. Now type exit and get the prompt of step 3

9. Type exit again and the terminal window is closed

(NOTE: you can also just click the close button on the terminal and respond to the comment about killing a running process).

10. Now test a browser. (in accordance with an earlier instruction from the Fedora site) I selected Epiphany.

A good site to check is www.speakeasy.net/speedtest If you see a window with a list of cities and you click on it and get a measurement, it is working OK.

Another good test is to go to www.pmug.us

then click on the “about us” tab. You should see a series of pages showing the officers of the Mac User Group. They automatically flip.

Another good site to check is www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

If you see a window with a list of cities and you click on it and get download and upload measurements, it is working OK. (my XO shows around 5 MB down and 1 MB up – I am on a 10 MB connection the mac is quicker).

NOTE: The Flash installation doesn’t carry over to the Sugar OS. I will need updated instructions for that. --Generalludd 23:18, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Why did you choose version 9? I can't really recommend version 9 of the player since version 10 is available, works, is maintained, has security update support, and is required for certain web sites. --Quozl 01:13, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I'll try again. It is hard for me to tell what version I am running. I thought I was getting 10, but it looked like 9 was being installed. I am very unskilled with Linux code. By the way, can you tell me what version of Fedora the 10.1.3 update is running?

I tried again with adobe-release-i386-1.0.1.noarch.rpm, and got the message "package adobe-release ... is already installed." That was the one the Adobe site said was the latest. --Generalludd 00:55, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Okay, so you chose version 9 by accident, or because that is what Adobe's web site provided. I've not looked at Adobe's web site, I'm referring to the Adobe Flash page here on the OLPC Wiki, because that's what I've tested. If you ignore the tested advice, you're relying on Adobe's testing. I don't think they test on an OLPC XO at all. That it doesn't work on Sugar is a pretty significant problem for OLPC usage. To answer your question, the OLPC OS version 10.1.3 is based on Fedora 11, according to the release notes. --Quozl 02:46, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. I mispoke on working under sugar. I went to the sites i mentioned previously with browse and when i clicked on the "click to play" at the top, then flash operates. After i checked some documentation on browse, i found that is as it should be. I see that adobe has a page that identifies the browser on a system. http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/. It worked on my mac, and i found i was way out of date and updated it. So indirectly thanks on that. I will try that site with the XO,though it probably is not applicable. Regards ==Generalludd 01:21, 25 February 2011 (UTC).