Flash in Linux browsers

[SiriusHardware]

I'm relatively new to Linux and have been trying out Debian and a little bit of Ubuntu for a little over a year. One thing I have singularly failed to do is to get adobe's official Linux flash plugin to work in any Linux web browser. There are a lot of how-to guides online, but none of them work for me, I presume because they are now out of date and no longer applicable.

So, if we assume the following:
Ubuntu 12.10
Chromium (not Chrome) browser

How do I go about enabling Flash?

At the moment, visiting any site with a flash content window (ie, youtube) throws up a blank window with a jigsaw piece symbol in it and a narrow banner above saying 'could not load shockwave flash'.

Flash-plugin is shown as installed in 'Software Centre'.

[johnhudson]

No problem with chromium 27 on openSUSE.

What version of chromium have you installed?

[SiriusHardware]

No problem with chromium 27 on openSUSE.

What version of chromium have you installed?

From the 'triple line' menu button, top right,

'About Chromium'

"Version 28.0.1500.52 Ubuntu 12.04 (28.0.1500.52-0ubuntu1.12.04.2)"

I think I said I was running Ubuntu 12.10? 12.04 it would appear, sorry. I can't see where (In Ubuntu) I can get a simple statement of which version I'm actually running. Of course I did know which version it was when I installed it, but that was a while ago now.

If I go to the same Chromium menu again and choose

'Settings'

scroll down to the bottom of that screen, click 'show advanced settings'

More options appear, of which the first is

'Privacy'

Under that heading, click the 'content settings' button

In the 'Content settings' dialogue screen scroll down to

'Plugins',

Click 'Disable individual plugins'

This brings up the list of installed Plugins, along with their currently enabled or disabled status. Among them is


Adobe Flash Player - Version: 11.2 r202
Shockwave Flash 11.2 r202
Name: Shockwave Flash
Version: 11.2 r202
Location: /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/libflashplayer.so

-which is enabled. But Flash content does not work. It's not just Chromium by the way, Flash doesn't work for me in Firefox either. Between the two my preference is for Chromium, so I'm happy to focus on a walkthrough / assistance for getting it to work in Chromium only.

Incidentally I have also tried Google Chrome which allegedly has built-in Flash support. That has never worked for me either.

[johnhudson]

Apart from a minor difference in the location, that is what I have.

Since you have problems with other applications, I would try the Ubuntu forums as it appears to be an Ubuntu related problem.

[ajgreeny]

What hardware do you have?

Your CPU needs to be sse2 enabled, which a few including sempron CPUs are not; check with

Code: Select all

cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep sse2

If there is no output from that command you will have to use an earlier version of flash.

See http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1953796 for more info and a download of the correct version for that CPU.

If I have got this completely wrong you can just ignore my comments, but unfortunately I can't help with any other suggestions.

[SiriusHardware]

Apart from a minor difference in the location, that is what I have.

Since you have problems with other applications, I would try the Ubuntu forums as it appears to be an Ubuntu related problem.

Thanks for the follow up - but I had exactly the same issues when the same hardware had Debian 6 installed. I was just trying to keep the problem as narrow as possible (one operating system, one browser). I am beginning to wonder if it is a combination of my hardware + the Linux version of Flash.

[SiriusHardware]

What hardware do you have?

Your CPU needs to be sse2 enabled, which a few including sempron CPUs are not; check with

Code: Select all

cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep sse2

If there is no output from that command you will have to use an earlier version of flash.

See http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1953796 for more info and a download of the correct version for that CPU.

If I have got this completely wrong you can just ignore my comments, but unfortunately I can't help with any other suggestions.

Actually, that sounds like a pretty good lead to me.

The system in question certainly is old: An AMD Duron 1.6 and a Radeon 9200 graphics card. - however, I can swap the original Windows XP HDD back into this machine and watch flash content on that any time I feel like it, so, under Windows at least, the hardware is not incompatible with Flash.

Maybe, as you may be suggesting, the Linux version of Flash is more picky about what it can run on.

[SiriusHardware]

What hardware do you have?

Your CPU needs to be sse2 enabled, which a few including sempron CPUs are not; check with

Code: Select all

cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep sse2

If there is no output from that command you will have to use an earlier version of flash.

See http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1953796 for more info and a download of the correct version for that CPU.

.

No output from that command, so I think you've hit the nail on the head - why in **** couldn't they just generate a little 'Your CPU is incompatible with this plugin' error message to that effect so that we wouldn't be left head scratching?

Anyway, thanks - looks like the way forwards (backwards?) is to try to find a slightly older version of the Adobe Linux Flash plugin.

[ajgreeny]

As I said, use that link in my last post which will get you the last flash version which worked on non-sse2 cpu machines.

The flashaid plugin for firefox is no longer available unfortunately so you will need to install flash by manually moving the libflashplayer.so file.

After downloading the file, extract it using the file manager, copy the file libflashplayer.so and paste into ~/.mozilla/plugins/. To see that directory under your home, you need to show hidden files. You can do that in Nautilus by hitting CTRL+H. You may need to make the folder first, if it does not already exist.

[SiriusHardware]

As I said, use that link in my last post which will get you the last flash version which worked on non-sse2 cpu machines.

The flashaid plugin for firefox is no longer available unfortunately so you will need to install flash by manually moving the libflashplayer.so file.

After downloading the file, extract it using the file manager, copy the file libflashplayer.so and paste into ~/.mozilla/plugins/. To see that directory under your home, you need to show hidden files. You can do that in Nautilus by hitting CTRL+H. You may need to make the folder first, if it does not already exist.

Yep. I went on a little voyage of discovery following your lead and discovered, indeed, that Flash-Aid existed but no longer exists: And downloaded and transplanted a slightly earlier version of the Flash plugin, which, lo and behold... works.

Sort of. Unfortunately it turns out that the hardware is just not fast enough for smooth playback - I get a frame rate of about 5-6, but at least it does now show me something.

Time for some slightly more modern hardware to use as my Linux platform, I think.

[darry1966]

Hi could I ask what your Window Manager is?

May be a less ram intensive Window Manager like LXDE would help.

[ajgreeny]

If you're using unity in the ubuntu system, I think you will find that anything is pretty slow with your hardware, and I'm not even sure if that card (ATI9200) can run unity sensibly at all.

It is definitely worth looking at alternative DEs or window managers, as darry1966 said, and I would suggest Lubuntu or Xubuntu as the most appropriate for you.

Worth a try? I think so!

[PCNetSpec]

There seems to be a problem with 11.2 on some hardware .. try flashplayer 11.1
(hardware acceleration maybe .. but no way to turn it off without flash working .. duh!!!)

Be aware, Firefox will moan about the plugin being out of date .. chromium will just work.

See here:
http://peppermintos.net/viewtopic.php?p=37083#p37083

[SiriusHardware]

There seems to be a problem with 11.2 on some hardware .. try flashplayer 11.1
(hardware acceleration maybe .. but no way to turn it off without flash working .. duh!!!)

Be aware, Firefox will moan about the plugin being out of date .. chromium will just work.

See here:
http://peppermintos.net/viewtopic.php?p=37083#p37083

Ajgreeny basically had the right of it, which was that the most recent version of Adobe Flash for Linux simply will not run on processors which do not have certain hardware features, but it does not bother to give you any kind of error message explaining that. It just fails to work.

When I stepped back to a prior version of Adobe Flash plugin for Linux, it started to work, albeit very poorly with a very low frame rate. This I'm prepared to accept is the consequence of a rather heavyweight version of Linux (Ubuntu 12.04) and old hardware.

I've considered Lubuntu already but will have to get around to ordering it on a disc - my internet speed is just not up to downloading CD/DVD ISO images.

Actually, FLASH aside, the old machine (1.6Ghz Duron, 1GB RAM, Ati Radeon 9200 AGP video card) runs Ubuntu 12.04 with the default Unity desktop quite well - for example, it plays offline video and DVDs perfectly smoothly. In its day, the motherboard was very high-end, although the graphics card was just average.

I really don't like Unity much, but I kept it because I tend to think that if you need help with an OS, it's better for it to be the standard version which everyone is familiar with, rather than a heavily customised version.

[Alex01UK]

Other posters seem to go about it in a very long winded method to get flash working. I've used Ubuntu Studio since October 'o8 {The Intrepid Ibex no less}, always installing the latest version zero dayz etc and have used Chromium browser since it came out.

On Ubuntu you install Chromium Browser in the Synaptic Package Manager. The you search in the Synaptic Package Manager for 'Adobe Flash'. Select whatever looks most suitable for browser. I think there might be different ones for Firefox or Chromium. I don't remember exactly at the time, but it was not an issue at all. And flash then just works....

Aparently, if you install Chome instead of Chromium, then that has flash built in, but I never tried that. hth,

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--
Benjamin Kinobi.
www.newmatrixism.com