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Finally, a .deb for Flash Player
For some time, Flash Player has been a sticking point for new Linux users. On most sites, Firefox will prompt you to automatically installl it, but some sites (such as YouTube) try to deal with it on their own. This has previously caused problems for Ubuntu users, since Adobe has not put out a .deb package of Flash Player. Now, with Flash Player 10 for Linux, that has changed!
If you still have not installed Flash Player on your Ubuntu or Debian machine (yeah, right) or if you want to upgrade to Flash Player 10, head over to the Adobe Flash Player download page. From there, just choose “.deb for Ubuntu 8.04+.” Once you download the .deb file, just double click on it and choose install. Restart your browser, and there you go!
It is great to see Adobe taking this step, which should make it easier on new Linux users.
8 Is Above 10: Flash Player 10 and CNN
A little while ago I did a tutorial on upgrading to Flash Player 10 Beta. I still recommend most Linux users do this, since it fixes a problem with drop down menus disappearing behind Flash content, however I noticed one issue today. The issue is, in fact, quite funny. When clicking on a CNN.com video, I was presented with this error message (I am on Ubuntu running Firefox 3 with Flash Player 10 Beta):
Interesting error message...
Hmmm… “This CNN.com feature is optimized for Adobe Flash Player version 8 or higher. You are currently using Flash Player 10″
Last time I checked 10 was greater than 8. Anyway, for anyone who watches lots of CNN videos, don’t upgrade to Flash Player 10 quite yet. If you already upgraded, don’t worry. Just install an older version like you would install version 10 beta and you should be fine again.
I checked most of the other major news sites and they seem to all be fine with Flash Player 10 beta.
Due to Adobe’s AIR, a technology that lets web applications be run on the desktop on Linux, Mac, or Windows, it seemed like Adobe was headed in the direction of platform independence. Now, Adobe has made those plans official with their Open Screen Project.
I view the project, which is intended to bring Flash and Air to everything from TVs to PCs to handheld devices and UMPCs, as an official statement from Adobe (and a number of other prominent companies that are also involved) that they believe, as I do, that cross-platform internet-connected applications are the future. Because Adobe is seeing this so early, they will likely become a great supporter of Linux, even if they don’t try to.
As cross-platform applications start to take off, thanks to AIR and other similar projects, the barrier to adopting Linux is going to shrink and quickly disappear. At that point, I think we will begin to see more and more switchers to Linux and other smaller operating systems.
Because of this, Adobe is going to play an essential part in destroying a key barrier to the adoption of Linux.