20070604
Getting Even with Adobe
Why is this post called "Getting even with Adobe?"For those 18 months where there was Flash 8 for Windows but not for Linux. I could have watched a few more cartoons on Newgrounds, or visited a few more flash-enabled websites between the Fall of 2004 all the way to January of this year!
I have learned one thing during my isolation from Flash Animation and music websites, and movie website including the Underworld: Evolution website featuring a sexy leather-clad Kate Beckinsale. (It is for THAT reason alone, I have not forgiven Adobe or Macromedia!) The Adobe PDF reader is a peice of CRAP!
There are other programs that are faster, lighter, and don't ask you if you want to download the internationalization plug-in to view GUI of the Adobe PDF Reader in Swahili for the 2 page PDF file you are trying to read. GNOME's Evince is one of GNOME's greatest assets. Even though the PDF file I am reading is not embedded into the browser, it takes me about a couple of seconds for the document I want to read to show up, where as Adobe Reader takes too much time to do the same thing.
Therefore, I won't be showing you how to install the Adobe reader plug-in if you use Linux. Give Evince a try, and you might agree with my testimonial.
You should not need to use the Adobe SVG plug-in if you use Firefox. Firefox can read SVG files, just not all the SVG elements...yet. But Adobe can't recoginze all the elements either using their SVG plug-in even though they make the Adobe Illustrator program. But just as Adobe Reader takes its time loading PDFs, the Adobe SVG plug-in is also guilty of the sins of sloth and gluttony. Much development is underway for the SVG features of Firefox.
You will still need to download the Adobe Flash plug-in for Linux. But what if you have a 64-bit system. Adobe sees creating programs for Linux as pulling teeth. Cowardly, they try to rewrite the code so that they thing that we don't reverse engineer their software. (Oh no! The big bad Linux users are going to steal our code! Don't trust them! They might create a new program, and run us out of business with thier heads full of darksiiiiided ideas.) By the time they get done wasting their efforts by rewriting the code, someone in the open-source community would come up with their own solution for the Flash plug-in but for a different architecture than what Adobe was writing their plug-in for. And he did!
Enter Gwenolé Beauchesne and his NSPluginWrapper.
Just as a heads up, if you are tired of moving all those soft links to the plug-ins each time upgrade Firefox, DO NOT install them in the Firefox plug-ins folder. Instead, install the plugins at /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/.
Here are the instructions for installing the Flash plug-in on x86_64. You need to be root to do this. It would be wise NOT to install ANY of the plug-in software first.
cd ~/Download
wget http://gwenole.beauchesne.info/projects/nspluginwrapper/files/nspluginwrapper-i386-0.9.91.4-1.x86_64.rpm
wget http://gwenole.beauchesne.info/projects/nspluginwrapper/files/nspluginwrapper-0.9.91.4-1.x86_64.rpm
wget http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/flash-plugin-9.0.31.0-release.i386.rpm
# At this point, close any instance of Firefox or whatever web browser you are using.
rpm -Uvh nspluginwrapper-i386-0.9.91.4-1.x86_64.rpm
rpm -Uvh nspluginwrapper-0.9.91.4-1.x86_64.rpm
# At this point, the software will search for plug-ins.
# This is why you should not install any of the software yet.
# After it has checked for plug-in you may then proceed to install the flash software.
rpm -Uvh flash-plugin-9.0.31.0-release.i386.rpm
# This package will create a soft link, such that
# /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so -> /usr/lib/flash-plugin/libflashplayer.so
nspluginwrapper -i /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so
# This activates the plug-in!
# To see which plug-in are activated, type
# nspluginwrapper -l
# Open Firefox. Goto, `about:plugins' see what plug-ins are available.
# There should be one for Flash.
And so, you are now able to visit YouTube again. The rightful order has been restored. B-)
posted by Bushido Hacks 6/04/2007 09:42:00 PM
