Flash 9 on 64bit Linux in 2 Commands
Wednesday, 6 December 2006
I’ve heard it so many times… “Flash 9 doesn’t work on 64bit Linux” So when I loaded 64bit Gentoo Linux my new Merom based Intel Core 2 Duo, I really was expecting an adventure. Turns out that it was actually pretty uneventful. It worked first try without any problems and in only 2 commands. Here’s what I did..
First I added the net-www/netscape-flash package to /etc/portage/package.unmask
sudo vi /etc/portage/package.unmask
Then I emerged Flash 9 & the Netscape Plugin Wrapper
sudo emerge -av netscape-flash nspluginwrapper
Then I reloaded Firefox, tested it, and it works great! I assume it’s this easy on other distributions, but I only have Gentoo to test on.
Of course this means much more than just being able to watch YouTube videos… Now that the Flex 2 SDK is free (as in beer) anyone can build applications that work the same on all major browsers and operating systems! I’m happy to say that since I started doing Flex development about two years ago, Firefox on Linux has been my primary build and test environment. And in that two years the only time I’ve had to write any of those “if IE” things was when I was writing JavaScript for a soon to be released Ajax & Flex benchmarking tool.
Using my OS of choice… Writing code once that works the same universally… These are things that make me happy. :)
Oh, and the fact that Flash is now built on the Mozilla / Open Source Tamarin VM makes me ecstatic!
No. 1 — December 6th, 2006 at 5:20 pm
I think I am confused, is there a 64 bit Flash Player. Or are you just referring to using Flash Player 9 with a 32 bit compatible Firefox browser on a linux 64 bit machine?
No. 2 — December 6th, 2006 at 5:25 pm
It’s the 32bit Flash Player running via the Netscape Plugin Wrapper on 64bit Linux in 64bit Firefox.
No. 3 — December 6th, 2006 at 5:41 pm
k thx for the clarification.
No. 4 — January 4th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
didn’t see this link when you originally posted this on jd’s blog. nice!
now only the linux/ppc folks are complaining? ;)
No. 5 — January 4th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
Yeah, all 3 of them. ;)
Just kidding. I do hope that we release a Linux/PPC version of Flash Player 9.
No. 6 — February 7th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
There are instructions on how to get this working on Ubuntu here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FirefoxAMD64FlashJava
No. 7 — February 20th, 2007 at 7:51 am
It’s just as easy to install on 64 bit openSUSE 10.2 — http://www.darronschall.com/weblog/archives/000258.cfm
Essentially, it boils down to one line after you’ve downloaded the player from Adobe’s site: sudo cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/browser-plugins/libflashplayer.so
No. 8 — April 13th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
I wasn’t aware of nspluginwrapper until I saw your article. You have just made me very happy! :-D
No. 9 — April 18th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
Looks like you don’t need to unmask the package any longer…. Nice!
No. 10 — May 2nd, 2007 at 10:31 pm
64-bit support should be provided! The work-arounds mentioned in this topic are very cumbersome and silly. One shouldn’t have to install a 32-bit version of Firefox and a 32-bit Flash plug-in. Please 64-bit versions of the Flash plug-in for Windows and Linux.
No. 11 — May 3rd, 2007 at 12:29 am
Hi Ursula,
You are right that it should be easier. But you do not have to install a 32 bit version of Firefox to use the nspluginwrapper. What distro are you using? From what I’ve hear most distro’s make it very esay to install the 32bit Flash 9 plugin on 64bit Linux via that nspluginwrapper. Let me know if you have experiences that are sub-optimal and we will try to help improve them. Thanks.
-James
No. 12 — June 20th, 2007 at 3:57 am
well I have nspluginwrapper and it took reloading Seamonkey more than 6 times for it to finally show the flashs at youtube. but NO sound . I sure wouldn’t want that soundwrapper. arts and esd no thanks . alsa oss yes. ff with -i it doesn’t install it to the ff plugin dir at all yet with -a -v -u I see it trying to update ff plugin did but since it doesn’t install the npwrapper.libflashplayer.so there it can’t. nspluginwrapper -i /path/to/libflashplayer.so install to /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins/npwrapper.libflashplayer.so
wich is fine but No sound horrible. so how do you get it to install to ff too or get ff to just look at the good old mozilla/plugin dir.
No. 13 — July 25th, 2007 at 7:59 am
It’s just as easy to install on 64 bit on debian sid 64 bits http://scorpio810.tuxfamily.org/nspluginwrapper.html
No. 14 — August 29th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
I wrote a small blog about how to install the flash beta on the 64 bit linux here: http://www.eqjunkies.com
No. 15 — December 6th, 2007 at 7:27 am
Unfortunately nspluginwrapper doesn’t seem to be very stable. I use Mandriva and was overjoyed with Mandriva 2007 and nspluginwrapper for getting flash to work on my x86_64 system. However less than a couple of weeks ago I upgraded to Fedora 8 and flash went down the tubes in spite of how many times I tried to get the wrapper to install flash 9 it wouldn’t work. So back to Mandriva I go with 2008. Now I can wrap the plugin but it crashes. I’m fed up with this so for anyone looking for a native 64 bit solution try gnash.
No. 16 — December 10th, 2007 at 12:10 am
Has anyone tried nspluginwrapper with the recent 9.0.115.0?
No. 17 — June 22nd, 2008 at 4:12 pm
In Ubuntu from Gutsy onward, try:
sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree
in a shell. That installs nspluginwrapper automatically.
Best regards,
J.
No. 18 — August 29th, 2008 at 8:00 am
I am newbie. I had huge problem with flash instalation on my 64bit Kubuntu, until this:
sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree
I restarted firefox, and without single click or problem with 32bit – 64bit compatibility, works.
More info: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MultimediaApplications