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Why Is Adobe Flash On Linux Still Broken?
mwilliamson writes "As I sit reading my morning paper online I still cannot view the embedded videos due to auto-detection of my Flash player not working. One in every three or four YouTube videos crashes the browser. I remember sometime back reading that Adobe has a very small development team (possibly only one) working on the Linux port of Flash. It has occurred to me that Flash on Linux is the one major entry barrier controlling acceptance of Linux as a viable desktop operating system. No matter how stably, smoothly, efficiently, and correctly Linux runs on a machine, the public will continue to view it as second-rate if Flash keeps crashing. This is the worst example of being tied down and bound by a crappy 3rd-party product over which no Linux distribution has any control. GNASH is nice, but it just isn't there 100%. I really do have to suspect Adobe's motivation for keeping Flash on Linux in such a deplorable state."
is it real?
Poor Flash is the one major barrier? Pah - there are a number of more pressing issues, like poor wireless support (on the driver level), poor opensource drivers and closed drivers being difficult to configure manually, poor multimedia support on the API level (using SDL helps a bit though), iffy ACPI support on a number of systems, negligible vendor preloads, and probably a number of other things.
That said, excellent flash support would certainly be nice.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
speaking of that, video codecs are a WAY bigger problem than flash. Anyone can live without flash. I'd put codecs and games way before flash any way. And if Red Alert 2/Oblivion/Generals/Starcraft can't run on Linux, I'm installing Windows.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Yeah, and as we all know, everybody is still running on 56K modems and 10GB hard drives so we really need incredibly compact files. Oh, and all the babe pictures I download have to be 10K or smaller.
Put a sock in it. Web developers - and their teachers - need to stop emphasizing "small and fast" - most people are on DSL or cable these days and the Internet needn't be limited by the concerns of the Nigerians. If streaming full video puts pressure on the Net backbone, fix the goddamn thing.
Flash videos suck rocks.
The real problem are cheap bastards who don't buy enough bandwidth and don't buy enough or powerful enough servers. THAT'S why I spend hours a day waiting for some asshole's Web site to load a page. It's like being back in the 1970's with green screen monitors attached to mainframes - except I have color.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Your P never said SVG in and of itself was crap or not able to do it's job. He simply pointed out that it clearly wasn't able to do the job that your GP was proposing it as an alternative for. This means my P and my GGP are the only ones being dumb.