Flash player for Linux (WAS: Re: The silly mess with Firefox 1.5.0.4's Flash plugin)

[Steven Pasternak]

Jim Cornette wrote:
> Robin Laing wrote:
>>>
>>
>> There is also a work around that I came across that will work with 
>> some sites that request Flash 9.
>>
>> From
>>
>> http://xubuntu.wordpress.com/2006/08/14/flash-9-for-xubuntu/
>>
>> 1) Make a back-up of the file ~/.mozilla/firefox/pluginreg.dat:
>>
>> cp ~/.mozilla/firefox/pluginreg.dat ~/.mozilla/firefox/pluginreg.dat.bak
>>
>> 2) Edit that file:
>>
>> nano ~/.mozilla/firefox/pluginreg.dat
>>
>> 3) Replace the lines that say
>>
>> Shockwave Flash 7.0 r63:$
>>
>> to
>>
>> Shockwave Flash 9.0 r63:$
>
>
> Thanks for the trick. The bothersome site that distracted the kids to 
> use Linux was the disneychannel.com site. The site came up with the 
> edited file. Firefox worked somewhat but needed the old killall -9 
> firefox-bin after some clicking. What features they use that require 
> Flash 9 will always be a mystery to me.
>
> Anyway, I'm assamed to inform a kid that Windows can go to this site 
> but Linux cannot. Hopefully a genuine Flash 9 version hits Linux soon. 
> I don't want the kids corrupted into using windows.
>
> Jim
>
I agree that windows is corruption, but if a website is something that 
you CAN'T live without, just use wine to install firefox and flash 9. It 
works Just as good as under linux. I seem to recall having some ugly 
fonts to start with, so just play around with the firefox preferences 
(specifically tools>options>content>advanced) and use the Arial font 
instead of Times New Roman. If you REALLY want to fool somebody, you can 
install a firefox theme (noia and phoenity are my favorites) and put a 
simple bash script in you $HOME/bin (or anywhere else, just make sure 
that it is the FIRST entry in the $PATH variable) that looks like this:
#!/bin/bash
wine $HOME/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program\ Files/Mozilla\ 
Firefox/firefox.exe $@

Now the firefox in the Kmenu (or the applications menu in GNOME) will 
run the wine firefox instead of the native one. Test it with something 
like 'firefox kde.org' to see if it works. Now nobody can tell the 
difference. I don't know if wine does sound without using winecfg first, 
so you might have to do that, too. For things like embedded video, just 
use a native linux browser because WMP and Quicktime don't do great 
under wine (and I never tried it with wine firefox either ;-)
Hope you find some of this useful!
-Steven