x86 Linux Flash Player 9 is Final 288
Schlaegel writes "The official Adobe Linux Flash blog has announced that Flash player for x86 Linux is now final and no longer beta. Every x86 Linux user, at least those willing to load binary software, can rejoice and no longer feel like a second rate citizen. Distribution packages are also available, for example the Macromedia Fedora repository already has the flash player marked for update."
Binary Software? ... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Any vacancies in the i-still-hate-flash dept.? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like Windows... (Score:3, Insightful)
Amd64 rules (sure intel 64 does as well) (Score:2, Insightful)
As an amd64 linux user since a year and about 5 months, this platform is very mature nowadays and it makes sense to be paid more attention from adobe guys: please learn from nvidia people.
I have a 32bit chroot for any disturbances like this one, but I'm using it less and less.
On the other hand, my own dirty tests show that amd64 behaves about a 15% faster when executing 64bit code than when doing 32bit, so it is not just that 64bit can address more memory: these chips shine at 64bit and deserve a 64bit OS. Sorry but I've not tested intel 64bit CPUs so far.
Re:Just like Windows... (Score:2, Insightful)
Adobe has always opened the formats (see postscript, PDF). I would not be scared if they stopped developing linux plugin, perhaps it would be better since GPL plugins would receive more developers and resources and perhaps would become even better than original adobe plugin. In the same sense that if Adobe stops releasing acrobat for linux we won't miss it so much we would have missed it some years ago.
What it would scare me, of course, would be if they closed the flash spec.
Same here (Score:3, Insightful)
Flash Player is behaving badly on win, why would it do other on Linux ?
Re:Any vacancies in the i-still-hate-flash dept.? (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate that its required as an extension (but shown my support for the principle by bugfixing it...)
ClickToView functionality should be a proper configurable option within the core system for all plugin types.
Re:Any vacancies in the i-still-hate-flash dept.? (Score:4, Insightful)
Claim ignorance? Most Linux users ARE truly ignorant when it comes to Windows.
Re:Any vacancies in the i-still-hate-flash dept.? (Score:5, Insightful)
Flash is REALLY useful. I stream my music and video across the net using flash. I know that any machine (Windows/OSX/Linux) that has flash player installed can stream my media.
Why not offer your users the option to simply download your material and let them use the player of their choosing?
Until there is a decent replacement that is just as light, Flash is here to stay.
There is no way that flash is lighter than a link to a file.
Re:Just like Windows... (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is why Microsoft hasn't embraced and extended Flash.
Being completly open makes you vulnerable to things like that when there's a monoploy in the house. Please reference Microsoft's treatment of Java, HTML,and Javascript.
High CPU usage (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Any vacancies in the i-still-hate-flash dept.? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe because then you have to offer it in many different formats?
I like built-in players in webpages, because they (almost) always Just Work.
Re:Any vacancies in the i-still-hate-flash dept.? (Score:3, Insightful)
If the BBC would use a free format instead of the Redmondian WMV or the outright damnable Real, I wouldn't need Flash at all.
I would much prefer to watch this video content in the format of my choice ~outside~ of a browser in the application of my choice.
Other Archs (Score:3, Insightful)
And, as usual with binary software, users of any of the many other architectures Linux support are left in the cold.
Re:Any vacancies in the i-still-hate-flash dept.? (Score:4, Insightful)
Somehow I doubt that. I'm reminded of studies during the 90s that showed that Windows users typically had no knowledge of Mac OS, but Mac OS users typically had moderately detailed knowledge of Windows.
I suspect that the situation is similar for Linux. I would be very surprised if any significant percentage of Linux users had not:
...and so on.
Re:Any vacancies in the i-still-hate-flash dept.? (Score:5, Insightful)
Rubbish. Every Linux user I know personally (ok, only a dozen or so) is required to use Windows as their primary desktop OS at their place of work. This even includes some people who are primarily Linux developers.
This daily familiarity, combined with a general technical aptitude that you can still assume from Linux users, means that very few of them are going to be "truly ignorant" of Windows. Ignorant of some internal Win32 APIs perhaps, but not ignorant in the sense that you are claiming. Most people with a passing acquaintance of computers are going to be familiar with Windows to some degree.
Re:Finally! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Take a second look at flash (Score:4, Insightful)
- It is almost entirely client-side code, and not very efficient at that. Java applets are more portable (because Sun releases Java on more platforms simultaneously) and faster (Flash UIs are soooo sloooow) for executing client-side code. Even some JavaScript is a better choice in many cases.
- The stuff that executes server-side has to go through the "Flash gateway servlet" which won't work with anything but JRun, a horrible, unsupported, poorly documented, crash-happy piece of crap masquerading as a J2EE server. Applet-Servlet, JSP or even AJAX RPC (god forbid!) make for better server-side code.
- You can't separate the ActionScript into separate files. Every VCS that I've seen Flash developers use gets filled up with dozens of binary versions of the
.FLA source. Some even version-control the .SWF as well. Yuck. Obviously Flash developers weren't meant to use version control, which makes collaborating with them a real PITA.
Flash is useful for making animations, and only for making animations. Why the output couldn't be a standard movie file format instead, I'll never know. Adobe needs to stop trying to get into the web market and stick to PhotoShop.Is it? Maybe for Flash... (Score:3, Insightful)
So, you'd think this would be a simple, simple upgrade.... Nope. On Jan 1st of 2007, they bumped AbiWord to 2.4.6, but left the plugins were at 2.4.5, meaning you had a circular dependency loop -- tell Portage to update (-uDN world), and it would upgrade AbiWord to 2.4.6, because that's the latest version. Do it again, and it downgrades to 2.4.5, because that's where the plugins are.
So, one person informs them of this by adding to the report. Someone else says "abiword-plugins needs to be bumped. Thanks." I finally came in Jan 14th, and asked "Is anyone out there?" The next day, it was bumped.
Yes, it took them from Nov 17th to Jan 14th -- almost a month to do a fucking version bump. Rename two files, run one command to generate digests, commit to CVS. And they wonder why people are leaving for Debian and Ubuntu...
One wonders how they would handle a real bug. Actually, I have another one:
A bug [gentoo.org] in the jabberd init script. Opened 8/14. Found a strange hack to fix it, submitted that the same day, asking someone to tell me why my hack worked, and what the "right way" of doing it would be. 8/16, someone joined the discussion to say my hack worked, but agreed it's a hack... 9/4 something was marked dupe... 9/5 was the first patch that looked like it did the Right Thing. Few more "me too"s, few more dupes... 10/8, another update broke both my hack and the "Right Thing". 10/11, someone finally gave us a completely new init script.
Now, the final script was really the right thing to do, but one has to wonder... It's an init script. How can it be so hard to fix an init script that it takes them almost two months?!
Final exhibit, saved for last because I made a bit of an ass of myself on this one: Enigmail disappears from amd64. [gentoo.org] Now, I admit, a bug report may not be the right place to bitch about how insanely long this is taking... But still: Filed on 8/07/06, and I have a comment on 9/19 complaining about the lack of Enigmail 0.94.1, which seems to have been released on 8/12. Over a month and no upgrade in sight -- but the existing "stable" build is completely broken. On 9/29, I finally posted my success following someone else's crazy hack that somehow worked, but still no actual fix. Finally fixed on 10/19.
So, over a month with no upgrade (and a broken older version), but the new version was just as broken. Finally fixed two months after the original report. I think I can honestly say that I've only had Apple be slower at dealing with known, verified bug reports.
And I just checked... apparently, my enigmail didn't get automatically rebuilt with my last Thunderbird upgrade. Fortunately, remerging it fixed the problem... I was about to reopen that report.
If others are worse than Gentoo, it makes me think that maybe the idea of a central authority for a Linux distro is no longer workable. Sure, things like Flash will go in right away (and faster on Gentoo, because Portage is easy to work with both technically and legally for that sort of thing), but the less popular things -- like, say, Enigmail and AbiWord -- always seem to be a few months behind. Yes, months, plural -- even Microsoft is starting to look better, with their "Patch Tuesday".