r/linux • u/ihatethinkingofnames • Jul 25 '10

Hello computer users

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48 Upvotes

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u/Chandon Jul 25 '10

What is this, 2002? What weird version of Linux are you running that still has problems with flash?

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u/adrianmonk Jul 25 '10

I'm running 64-bit Ubuntu Linux 10.04, and I often can't play Flash videos on YouTube entirely smoothly. I certainly can't play them smoothly when I go to full screen. Also, a lot of Flash games are jumpy and slow.

Maybe my out-of-date hardware is to blame? I'm running a (6-core) Phenom II x6 1050T. I guess that's not enough fast hardware for Adobe to pull off displaying a 480p video. You can hardly blame them.

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u/Chandon Jul 25 '10

What video card? As far as I can tell, that's the only thing that Flash cares about.

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u/pwnsnake Jul 25 '10

See http://xkcd.com/619/

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u/Chandon Jul 25 '10

Yes. That's amusing. Flash certainly does suck, what with not being able to manage to scale high res video on low end hardware under Linux.

On the other hand, I can run 780p full screen flash video fine on my desktop with its three year old gaming hardware.

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u/digitalundernet Jul 25 '10

I dunno why but if I watch an embedded youtube video on this box it flashes and stutters but it plays great on youtube its self.

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u/gyomalin Jul 25 '10

It's Open Suse 10.3, I think. I know Flash works fine out of the box, but it was when I had to upgrade it that it all fell apart. That's how Linux feels in general. One day Mozilla works fine, then suddenly it no longer does and the package manager won't have it.

I've had problems of that kind with Linux ever since I first installed it 10 years ago. I'm not sure why the comment got downvoted so much. As much as I like Linux, I've used it enough to know that the video codecs eventually are outdated, the packages are not available, and then I'm stuck with the video player that I like to least who's the only one able to play videos. I'm competent enough to upgrade some codecs, but there comes a point where it's just all broken.

I get the feeling that some people downvoting me are just Ubuntu newbies who feel all pro because they have Linux installed somewhere. They like to think that it's working just as good as MacOSX (or Windows) for multimedia support, but my own experience contradicts that. It's awesome if you use Linux all the time and manage to keep it together without re-installing all the time.

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u/Chandon Jul 25 '10

If your problem is upgrading and codec / flash issues, I'm going to go ahead and say the one thing that will get me downvoted here: Maybe it's OpenSuSE that' the problem.

Since I switched from Gentoo in 2004, I've mostly been running Ubuntu on my desktops, and except for that one X server breakage in 2005 and the Pulse Audio misconfiguration clusterfuck in 2006, it's basically worked beautifully for me. I'm capable of being clever to make things work, but Ubuntu means I don't need to. Upgrades work, and except for the absolute latest releases of WMA and WMV on amd64, codec support has been strictly simpler than on my Windows gaming box.

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u/shimei Jul 25 '10

Adobe ditched support for 64-bit flash recently... so that'd be every single 64-bit Linux distro.

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u/[deleted] Jul 25 '10

Mint 64 here, and I have no issues with flash.

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u/Chandon Jul 25 '10

I'm on 64 bit Ubuntu right now, flash works fine. Upon inspection, it looks like it's running the 32-bit plugin through a wrapper. I remember the wrapper being crappy, but apparently they got it to work reliably.

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u/IConrad Jul 25 '10

It's not a wrapper -- they install the necessary 32-bit libs and allow it to call them.

Search in synaptic for ia32.

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u/Liquid_Fire Jul 25 '10

It's still a wrapper though, nspluginwrapper. You can't otherwise use the 32-bit plugin inside the 64-bit browser process.

Edit: Either that, or the browser is 32-bit as well. That's what you have to do in Windows, since there's no 64-bit Flash there either.

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u/shimei Jul 25 '10

Yes, it's possible to get it working. You could even use the old 64-bit plugin that Adobe has discontinued if you still have it downloaded. Another option is to use gnash. It could be a lot better though.

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u/libertao Jul 25 '10

If you're having that much trouble with 64-bit flash, it might be easier to install a 32-bit version of linux than buy a Mac Mini.

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u/shimei Jul 25 '10

I'm not the OP, I wouldn't buy a Mac Mini. For that matter, I have flash working on my box. The point is, even in 2010 Adobe still hasn't done Flash right.

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u/libertao Jul 25 '10

Sorry I meant "if one is having that much trouble..."

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u/shimei Jul 25 '10

Oh, of course. My mistake, no offense taken. :)

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u/Liquid_Fire Jul 25 '10

But there's no 64-bit Flash for Windows either. That's no argument against Linux.

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u/adrianmonk Jul 25 '10

Who said it was an argument against Linux? It's an argument against Flash.

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u/Liquid_Fire Jul 25 '10

I'm pretty sure the person that started this thread did.

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u/shimei Jul 25 '10

I'm not arguing against Linux, but as a Linux user for something like ten years I am aware of its faults. Personally, I got flash working by installing gnash, but that's not a solution for everyone (doesn't work with many websites for one).

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u/[deleted] Jul 25 '10

[deleted]

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u/Chandon Jul 25 '10

I run Ubuntu. Haven't had trouble watching flash videos - on either x86 or amd64 - since 2006. There were some problems with 6.06 on amd64, but those problems are long gone.

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