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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."

7 of 963 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Flash sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Adopt Silverlight!

    I'm going to rape your mother, slit her throat, and then drown you in a bucket of her blood you worthless troll.

  2. Re:Are you fucking serious? by douthat · · Score: 0, Troll

    My wild guess then would be that your setup is half-broken much like mine was. Try that old Windows trick of wiping your hard disk and reinstalling your Linux distribution, whatever it is. It might be the solution.

    Are you truly that inept at troubleshooting a pc, that you wipe the entire fucking OS to fix minor problems? Please stop giving people advice. About anything. Ever. Ok?

    Are you so inept at fixing a pc that you think wiping the entire OS is some sort of monumental task? Is troubleshooting for 3 hours better than wiping your OS clean in 30 minutes? (you have your home directory on a separate partition, right?)

    --
    She loves me: 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0 She loves me not: 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688BF ...
  3. Don't use a shitty OS lolz by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 0, Troll

    Face it, anything consumer related is shit on Linux if it originated elsewhere.

    Sure we have Amarok which owns Winamp but it started on Linux. Even Google, which is pretty pro Linux (compared to most) expect some stuff to be run under wine rather than giving us something native.

    I think Adobe is just a bit backwards and lacking the right skills. We always get the latest version of Flash last and it's never as good. If they had any sense they'd treat Linux people better. Both Apple and MS are trying to eat Adobe's lunch. Adobe's paying customers are generally businesses which are more open to open source than consumers. Why not give Linux users premium software and port Creative Studio to Linux to, at the very least, teach MS and Apple to stop eating into their market. Plus, imo, Linux will keep growing on the business front as will its software so why risk allowing GIMP to eat up it's market share as well.

    Flash isn't perfect full stop and, imo, there are better alternatives coming up, but Flash is huge and it would be nice to get some decent support for consuming and developing on Linux.

  4. Re:Flash by Jorophose · · Score: 0, Troll

    I never had any serious, regular problem, in the last year and a half, with Debian Etch or Any Ubuntu release since 6.10 (when i first used it) with flash. The oddball crash happens, but its nothing normal or that I can re-create (in epiphany browser or firefox)

    And yet I still keep getting them.

    When running firefox and I minimise it, if there's a flash app Firefox becomes unresponsive.

    Not to mention Flash sucks up ALL of my CPU cycles and almost all of my RAM. I run old hardware. So what? It should work just fine. Flash used to work on windows with even less. It works fine with MPlayer. Why not the plugin?

  5. Re:OH RLY by Omnifarious · · Score: 0, Troll

    No, I said AFAIK. I really don't know if they are or not. It certainly wouldn't surprise me if they were doing it. They easily could because the source isn't available for us to look at and see for ourselves.

  6. Re:Flash as a service delivery platform by Skye16 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Okay, it's a closed, proprietary application.

    Why, precisely, should I care?

    Don't bother answering. It was a rhetorical question. I've heard all your mindless drivel from countless people before.

    All I care about is this: does it work without pissing me off? People keeping things under wraps or making money off of something does not piss me off. I can understand why it would piss you off. I mean, people out there get awfully upset if two dudes or two chicks start humping each other. People decide to stone women for being raped because they didn't have 4 witnesses to the act.

    People feel and think lots of crazy, bat-shit loco things from time to time, and sometimes, they get so fucking zealous about it that they can't grasp how others may disagree, or even worse, just not give a shit. And that's when they get dangerous. It's bad enough when you disagree with a zealot; god help you if you just don't fucking care.

  7. Re:Flash sucks by stewbacca · · Score: 0, Troll

    is there a real difference between flash and silverlight?

    One is controlled by a company with a long-standing and well-deserved reputation as the graphics industry leader and the other one makes second-rate office software.