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NSPluginWrapper does just this. The main use, I think, is for using 32-bit plugins with a 64-bit browser, but you can also use it to isolate plugins in separate processes (which, given how unstable flash is on linux, is damn useful).

Gwenole Beauchesne has committed a lot of fixes in the past few weeks; the latest version is quite stable. In fact, it never crashes the browser for me, at worst the plugin instances die but a simple page reload fixes it.
Separating the plugins in another process allows Fedora 9+ to isolate them in their own, limited SELinux context. Even if there's a performance price for it, it might well be worth it.

http://gwenole.beauchesne.info//en/projects/nspluginwrapper

it's better than nothing

At present, it's the only way of getting flash on FreeBSD for amd64. I believe that flash still hasn't been ported to Linux on amd64 either.

I've used nspluginwrapper successfuly on 64-bit Mandriva for Flash (comes setup and installed by default with the Flash plugin so no messy fiddling around) and it's website says it's compatable with FreeBSD (although haven't used FreeBSD so can't confirm it).

One in every three or four YouTube videos crashes the browser.

Of course the ideal solution would be for Adobe to fix Flash, but in the meantime you can use nspluginwrapper to prevent Firefox from crashing whenever Flash goes down. nspluginwrapper runs Flash in a separate child process from the web browser, and uses IPC to display the plugin's contents in your browser; it was originally created to allow people to use 32-bit plugins in 64-bit browsers, but this mechanism is also great for isolating the web browser from plugin crashes.

Another solution is to use Opera, which on Linux runs its plugins in an nspluginwrapper-like child process by default.

Run SheepShaver.

Hi, I see you feel strongly about this. But I'm not sure whether you're aware of running 32-bit browser plugins in 64-bit browsers via nspluginwrapper, and contributing to the Tamarin Project to move the just-in-time compilation and garbage collection to a 64-bit memory space. http://gwenole.beauchesne.info/projects/nspluginwrapper/ http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2006/10/whats_so_difficult_64bit_editi.html http://www.mozilla.org/projects/tamarin/ You can get what you want now, and contribute to getting what you want in the future. Useful...? jd/adobe

Contrary to adobe propaganda, Flash is no cross-plateform framework at all. You can always try the nspluginwrapper project which allows to use netscape plugins on *nix platforms. But it's not the ideal solution.

I hate to say it, but I'm on an amd64 system, and flash works pretty well for me, including youtube. I'm using the 32-bit version of flash player, but I'm using nspluginwrapper with it to allow it to work with a 64 bit version of firefox...

I use nspluginwrapper and the 32-bit Flash plugin, it works fairly well, although occasionally Flash "goes away" (blank window with no content) and you need to reload the browser.

That being said, it's certainly better than most of the other alternatives.

Use nspluginwrapper. It takes a little effort to set up but runs Flash and a few other proprietary (32-bit-only) plugins with ease.

That's what nspluginwrapper is for.

Using nspluginwrapper (link) you can use 32bit Flash (amongst others) with 64bit Firefox.

X64 is compatible with x86. Is there some issue I'm not aware of?

While I find this story, and the facts therein, amusing, the same could be said of Leopard and its lack of a Mac OS Classic Environment: Linux with SheepShaver has better Classic Mac OS compatibility than Leopard does out of the box.

But I guess this is not a perfect analogy because SheepShaver can be run on Leopard. Maybe someone will port WINE over to Vista. :-)

Why not try this?

Just to pick a nit. When Mac switched to Intel chips, they killed OS 9 support in OS X.

If you need OS 9 on an Intel Mac, you'll have to run an app like Sheepshaver.

Mac isn't the best example for backwards compatibility. When they decide they're going to change, they're done. And since they do both the hardware AND software, it's dead.

Yea, if you count not having plugins an advantage.

SC2k runs great in dosbox. and I've run the mac classic version under sheepshaver without any major trouble (enabling sound makes it dog slow).

You're right. The Penguin.SWF blog says the flash JIT VM needs to be converted and that's why there's no 64 bit version.

The GP also forgot to mention the 3rd option (for the flash plugin):
3) nspluginwrapper. It's far from easy to get going on Ubuntu Feisty and needs a 32 development environment (in addition to a 64 bit environment) to be compiled but it _can_ be made work. A brief glance suggests it does it stuff by running the plugin in a 32 bit environment and communicating back to the 64 bit browser over sockets.

Want to use Flash on a 64bit browser?

It can - take a look at http://gwenole.beauchesne.info/projects/nspluginwr apper/ - a wrapper that enables the use of 32-bit plugins on a 64-bit browser.

Works fine with flash on my machine. For gentoo it is just a matter of emerging nspluginwrapper and flash.

Apple goes out of their way to ensure compatibility my a** look at how then dropped class form lintel systems and they don not want to help Sheep Shaver run os 9.2.2 as it only works up to 9.04 and that is only way to Classic on Intel Macs.
http://gwenole.beauchesne.info/en/projects/sheepsh aver
http://sheepshaver.cebix.net/

One of his big problems was getting flash to work with a 64 bit browser. He solved this by going to a 32 bit browser. It is also possible to wrap the 32 bit flash binary using nspluginwrapper http://gwenole.beauchesne.info/projects/nspluginwr apper/ which works OK most of the time using 64 bit Seamonkey and FC6.
--
Flash on solar power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

There are 2 ways to get a 32-bit Java plugin running under a Linux/AMD64 environment (BTW, AMD64 is the official arch name implemented by AMD and Intel, x86-64 has been officially abandonned):

• Use the Blackdown Java plugin, they provide a 64-bit version (it works ok, but I have come across at least 1 applet able to crash it).
• Use nspluginwrapper that allows you to load 32-bit plugins in 64-bit browsers.

Of course, since Sun has open sourced Java, a 64-bit Java plugin is likely to appear soon.

You can use nspluginwrapper to use the 32 bit Flash plug-in on AMD64 and compatibles. It works quite well.

The release notes suggest that beta 1 doesn't work but beta 2 does!

I've been using nspluginwrapper in my 64-bit firefox (compiled, using gentoo) for months now and, the first release notwithstanding, it has been completely stable. I suggest you give it a shot. It even enables your current 32-bit plugins for you on install (at least on gentoo)!

You can use sheepshaver to eliminate the PowerPC computer. That's one down, many to go.

I tried installing Ubuntu 64-bit (amd64) 6.06LTS onto a Dell Precision 690 (dual duo-core processors). Was fine except it couldn't find the drivers for the SAS drives I were using. But Ubuntu 6.10 installed great straight off the disc!

A point to note, 64-bit Macromedia Flash for linux isn't out yet - so one has to do something tricky, like install nspluginwrapper (http://gwenole.beauchesne.info/en/projects/nsplug inwrapper) that allows the use of 32-bit plugins for Firefox.

Apart from that all the standard 64-bit apps for linux work fine!