Adobe Releases Preview of 64-bit Flash For Linux 329
Rinisari writes "Finally, the day has come. Adobe has released a pre-release version of the 64-bit Flash player. It is available at the Adobe Labs Flash Player 10 download site immediately.
Where are the Windows and Mac versions? 'Release of this alpha version of 64-bit Flash Player on Linux is the first step in delivering upon Adobe's commitment to make Flash Player native 64-bit across platforms. We chose Linux as our initial platform in response to numerous requests in our public Flash Player bug and issue management system and the fact that Linux distributions do not ship with a 32-bit browser or a comprehensive 32-bit emulation layer by default. Until this pre-release, use of 32-bit Flash Player on Linux has required the use of a plugin wrapper, which prevents full compatibility with 64-bit browsers. With this pre-release, Flash Player 10 is now a full native participant on 64-bit Linux distributions.' Windows and Mac OS X 64-bit versions will follow, and the final versions all will be released simultaneously. Tamarin, the JIT compiler in Flash, is now capable of producing 64-bit code and nspluginwrapper is no longer required. There are, however, no plans to release a debugger version of the 64-bit plugin."
Just tested it (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Informative)
From the Gnash website:
Streaming Video
Gnash supports the viewing of streaming video from popular video sharing sites like Lulu.tv or YouTube.com.
When they stop claiming it as a feature, then they get to be free of my criticism of their broken feature.
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Informative)
I can't even play YouTube with their latest releases on my AMD64 box.
Youtube changed the video format to H264 for some/most/many of their videos recently. It used to work with swfdec.
In the very latest dev version of swfdec the video works again, but there is no sound.
Re:Just tested it (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Silverlight (Score:3, Informative)
We now have Java and Flash on 64-bit.
No 64-bit Java browser plugin until early 2009 [sun.com].
Obligatory coral cache mirror (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Silverlight (Score:2, Informative)
Silverlight is not currently available on linux... only windows and mac. So I guess adobe beat them to that milestone.
I have been waiting for the linux flash 64bit plugin for 3 years+. I can't believe a company like adobe couldn't deliver during all this time. It seems that they had their head in the sand for all that time. If Microsoft caused them to finally face reality, then I send them my thanks.
I don't really care who wins this tech war, as long as I don't have to use windows to view a freaken web site.
(I know my 64bit linux could load flash sites, but the implementation was buggy as hell, causing me to restart firefox and cross my fingers many times. Hopefully their release will change this.)
Re:doinitrite? (Score:3, Informative)
Is it just me, or does it just seem that if you need a 64-bit address space for your web browser, you're doing something totally wrong
I think the point is (at least on a 64 bit architecture) that running a single 32 bit program on your system means that you need another set of 32 bit libraries to support it... Better to run a system with a homogeneous architecture.
Re:Silverlight (Score:2, Informative)
Out of interest, what do you consider the smallest possible user base [...] open source
One
Re:Why linux first (Score:5, Informative)
You can't get a native 64 bit version of firefox/IE at the moment, so there's no need for 64bit flash....
Modded Insightful? Really?
So why is there this "Internet Explorer (64-bit)" icon on every 64bit version of Windows?
There is also this link with 64bit builds of Mozilla products: http://wiki.mozilla-x86-64.com/Download [mozilla-x86-64.com]
Re:Why I bitch. (Score:5, Informative)
I'm fairly sure I have a working 64-bit Java plugin, via OpenJDK. At least a few simple applets work, and I'm fairly sure I don't have a 32-bit Java on this machine.
Re:Silverlight (Score:3, Informative)
True. But there are quite a few more sites that use Java Webstart to run apps (not applets), which is basically unsupported and unusable on Linux x64 in any browser.
Summary is wrong: Debugger *is* planned (Score:5, Informative)
From the blog of Tinic Uro, the engineer who did the bulk of the work:
http://www.kaourantin.net/2008/11/64-bits.html [kaourantin.net]
A debugger version of the 64-bit version is not available yet. When we release it ActionScript 2 debugging will not work due the obsolete protocol which depends on 32bit pointers. ActionScript 3 debugging will be supported.
Specs (Score:1, Informative)
Release the source, or at least an open API/documentation/something, and then let us do the work.
You mean the specs that have just been updated [adobe.com] and aren't under any restrictions any more [adobe.com]?
And the source for the VM [mozilla.org] that has been available for quite a while as well?
When you're done adding a renderer and so on, you'll probably need the compiler [adobe.com], too.
To be fair, it lacks the old VM, which the proprietary player contains for backwards compatibility, and some closed third-party codecs.