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Linux Now an Equal Flash Player
nerdyH writes "As recently as 2007, Linux users waited six months for Flash 9 to arrive. Now, with Microsoft pushing its Silverlight alternative, Adobe is touting the universality of its Flash format, which has penetrated '98 percent of Internet-enabled desktops,' it claims. And, it today released Flash 10 for Linux concurrently with other platforms. Welcome to the future." Handily enough, Real Networks released this summer RealPlayer 11 for Linux, the first release for which they've included a .deb package, and offers nightly builds of their Helix player, for which Linux is one of the supported platforms.
Now make them do the same with Photoshop.
And this is a good example! Why change, update, or innovate if you have no competition? Throw a little in there and all of a sudden the things people actually wanted, are given!
We need a proper Open Source flash as a BSD user I am still jaded by flashes lack of support
There's still no 64-bit version yet!
Follow me
It's [loading...] a [loading...] multimedia [loading...] player/viewer [loading...].
Now, I can watch my CPU's max out, and my systems become unresponsive on EVERY platform!
Some of us have been waiting a lot longer for flash9 and still don't have it for wii, iphone, and I believe even the Opera web browser.
Do you really need reason for beer? Wingman Brewers
It's a slideshow viewer.
Complaints about lack of Photoshop and a 64-bit version aside (it's interesting how much Slashdot resembles a sewing circle of old ladies in the complaints department), this is actually pretty significant news. Especially if this is the beginning of a new Way Things are Done for the Flash developers. With most major video sites using Flash-based players and the other wealth of Flash content on other websites, Flash support is pretty essential for desktop users. This is a major stepping stone. Hopefully Adobe will see enough rewards from doing this that will encourage them to embrace the Linux platform even more.
My theory is that Adobe's Flash player is a horrible hack that is so utterly fragile and bug-ridden that Adobe can't actually make a 64-bit version without doing a full rewrite.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
If I recall correctly, it was six months after the release of Flash 9 for Windows when Linux got it, but there wasn't even a Flash 8 for Linux. Linux users had actually been waiting for a new release since the release of Flash 7.
Competition is good and all, but this is just annoying. It only exists to muddy the waters.
I'm just waiting for MS to announce that they will no longer speak english, but will communicate only in Anglush-Sharp. A language in which every noun is copyrighted by Microsoft and only MS approved verbs will generate an intelligible response.
umm......
GASH?
They have published the specs and the FOSS player isn't soup yet. So stop complaining and start coding buddy.
http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/
So get to work...
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Yeah. I thought the same thing. Real represented every wrong way to market and produce a product. It was neat in the beginning (well, it was pretty much the first, as far as I know), but as time went on, it became a bloated, spyware ridden piece of garbage far inferior to all of its competitors.
Honestly, I didn't know Real was still around. I wouldn't let that software near my windows machines, much less the Linux ones.
The Internet is generally stupid
Looks like they changed it during they beta to require glibc 2.4-based Linux distributions (RHEL 4, CentOS 4, Debian 4 are out) for stack-smashing protection.
Link.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
Most of the 64-bit work is still in the opensource Tamarin Project. You can still contribute, if you've got the chops.
http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2006/10/whats_so_difficult_64bit_editi.html
http://www.kaourantin.net/2006/11/spidermonkeys-relative-tamarin-joins.html
The "we'll maintain it for you" line has not particularly been borne out by experience.... ;-)
jd/adobe
Or for anybody who listens to BBC radio, it's the only linux method supported.
This space intentionally left blank
The iPhone SDK T&Cs prevent using it for writing anything that loads third-party code, which eliminates Flash as a possible thing to port (and Java, Python, whatever).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
What's that?
It's just a story we tell to scare the kids.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
I hate to disrupt a good theory with references, but What's So Difficult? 64-bit Edition claims the main issue is that rewriting the JIT compiler to emit 64-bit code is non-trivial.
So did they fix the *really* annoying problem where on linux firefox configurations that flash objects appear ontop of *everything* else in the page? This annoyance has made many pages very much un-usable (especially ones with drop down menus where the menu gets hidden behind the flash object :( ...adobe's own site fits into this catagory).
Now do the same for Shockwave Player so it can be on linux as well.
Time line for flash on iphone?
...But please, lets be realistic.
In your minds, if company Z doesn't support Linux, they lose. If they do support linux, they lose even worse. They get screamed at for not releasing specs, not GPL'ing the source, not supporting a specific distribution, not supporting 64-bit... the list goes on.
Now if you're going to take the time to respond to this, please answer me this: Why should company X spend the most time supporting a platform that has the least marketshare?
Linux folk see the problem being that software vendors don't support linux. The fact of the matter is Linux doesn't support ISV's. There are a million different distro's with no standardization. You already have your market share working against you, and you realize that. What you don't seem to realize is that your platform is the hardest to develop for and support.
You really should do something about this before you scream with a sense of entitlement that some company should spend time and money supporting your platform when it is not likely to be financially viable.
Similes are like metaphors
Honestly, I didn't know Real was still around. I wouldn't let that software near my windows machines, much less the Linux ones.
It's funny, actually, but the Linux version of RealPlayer is not loaded with garbage. It just looks like a vanilla video player. It is not at all like the Windows version.
Maybe a post from 2006 (summarizing an explanation from 2005) is not the best thing. At the end of the day, the excuses seem lame. Java had 64-bit support out pretty quickly (are you telling me the JIT in Flash is more complicated than the Java JVM, of which the JIT is a minor portion?)
The reason is that Adobe doesn't feel there's a big enough market for 64-bit platforms, thus it doesn't throw many resources at getting a 64-bit version, end of story.
That was also written, oh, two fucking years ago! They haven't figured out how to make their JIT compiler work in two years? What kind of incompetents are they? I'm sure it's a hard problem. Lots of problems are hard. But somehow Firefox and Opera and even IE managed to get their Javascript code working on 64bit platforms in the meantime. Why is Flash somehow special?
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
The kind who would think the Flash player was a good idea in the first place.
Specific distribution: Supporting all distributions isn't hard, you know.
No. Supporting Linux is not hard at all. It's not like you have to release 10 different packages for each distribution you support... and stuff.
Flip it around and ask yourself why shouldn't company X spend a little time making something cross-platform (it's not as hard as you think) and get that many more sales?
You say "It's not as hard as you think." I say, "It's easier said than done."
This just screams troll right here. I find it a pain to develop for Windows myself given that libraries and headers can be all over the place, or are you thinking of RAD C# stuff that is useless for many applications (note I'm saying it's useless for things like, say, Flash; it certainly has a use for smaller programs and other apps that don't need speed, etc).
Yeah, I'm a troll. Instead of developing a modern tool chain, linux folk scream, "Emacs/VIM, the GNU toolchain and a command line debugger is all you will ever need!" Which, wherein lies the most fundamental problem of the Linux crowd, they feel entitled to tell people what they should want and need, rather than listen to what people want and need. And then you call them a troll.
Similes are like metaphors
Now if you're going to take the time to respond to this, please answer me this: Why should company X spend the most time supporting a platform that has the least marketshare?
At one point back in 1995, the Microsoft Windows market was only 20% of the PC market. The other 75% of the market was OS/2, QNX, DrDos, Novell and a few others. Windows was an emerging market so we coded for it.
Linux is now an emerging (or growth) market. Ignore it if you want. Your competitors are not.
There is a reason that google has released Picasa and GoogleEarth binaries for linux and its not because of a bunch of hippies yelling at them demanding the code. There is a reason that Dell is still continuing its Linux line of products. Asus, Adobe, Quicken, Oracle, Real, etc, do not make their product support decisions based on a bunch of screaming smelly basement dwellers.
What you don't seem to realize is that your platform is the hardest to develop for and support.
Linux is the hardest platform to develop for if all you know how to code in is Microsoft based technologies.
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
In Linux, you can view *.rm files with rm command.
Gnash 0.8.4 was released yesterday, but I guess that doesn't merit a slashvertisement:
http://gnashdev.org/
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.