Flash Firefox & Linux

[Johnny Robbo]

Just when I got the whole flash thing sorted on my main (windows) PC, I start getting messages about it being outdated on my linux laptop. No problem, I thought... I'll just do an update. Thing is though, it's not that simple. I have to choose which version of update to download (choice of YUM, tar.gz and a couple of others). I've tried each of the options and I'm not sure what to do with them once they're downloaded as they don't just appear to install & update as I'm used to in Windows.

I'm probably missing something obvious but after googling what to do I'm even more confused. Any ideas?

Cheers,

John.

[64Guitars]

If you have Synaptic Package Manager installed, search for flashplugin-installer and install it (if it isn't already installed).

Or, you can enter the following at a terminal prompt:

sudo apt-get install flashplugin-installer


What version do you currently have? Flash for Linux hasn't been updated for a long time because Adobe abandoned it. The latest version is 11.2.202.635. To see what version you currently have, open Firefox and press Ctrl-Shift-A to go to the Add-ons page and click the Plugins tab. You should see Shockwave Flash. Click on More to see the exact version number.

Do you even need Flash? Most websites are abandoning Flash. The only site where I really need it is BBC to play the videos. Most things at Songcrafters now work without Flash but there are probably a few minor things that still need it.

[Johnny Robbo]

Thanks 64. I'm struggling to do the update as Linux seems to require more knowledge than WIndows - a small price to pay for the improved performance on this little netbook. I used the terminal prompt but that just led to a message saying something about it being "invalid". At that point, I was pushed for time so I had to leave it.

I think I'll just abandon Flash - I wasn't aware it was on it's way out to be honest, so it doesn't seem worth the hassle of trying to find which hoops to jump through to make it work.

As I say, pal... thanks for the advice & if there's anything guitar related you're ever stuck on, just let me know.

Thanks,

John