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Adobe (Temporarily?) Kills 64-Bit Flash For Linux

Posted by Soulskill on from the how-rude dept.

An anonymous reader writes "It seems that with the release of the 10.1 security patches, Adobe has, at least temporarily, killed 64-bit Flash for Linux. The statement says: 'The Flash Player 10.1 64-bit Linux beta is closed. We remain committed to delivering 64-bit support in a future release of Flash Player. No further information is available at this time. Please feel free to continue your discussions on the Flash Player 10.1 desktop forums.' The 64-bit forum has been set to read-only."

39 of 272 comments (clear)

  1. Fuck flash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I never had a player installed. And I'm doing just fine.

    It's just yet another proprietary lock-in. And most of the time it serves just waste.

    1. Re:Fuck flash by Rakarra · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It doesn't really matter that Flash is terrible and useless- it isn't Apple's place to tell me what I can or can't do with *my* phone. I may be an outlier but I won't be a customer as long as Apple behaves like they maintain some sort of ownership over their customer's possessions.

      Get used to it if you want to deal with Apple devices. Apple is very aggressively moving down the path towards the locked-down experience, where they decide how you use your devices and what you do with them. They say their customers don't want choices, they just want the Apple experience.

      Jobs smugly says that the PC world, where the user has a billion choices for just about every decision, is dying (just like BSD). In their mind, it is ABSOLUTELY Apple's place to tell you what you can do with Apple's phone.

      So, good for you for you for not supporting them if this is against your notion of what computing devices should be and how they should behave. I think Apple's philosophy is pretty damned dangerous to open computing.

  2. Flash Sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's one down. Now, get them to cancel flash on i386 Linux, then on MacOS, then Windows, and we'll be all set.

  3. flash killer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    First Apple, and now Adobe as the new flash killer. Good job

    1. Re:flash killer by rumith · · Score: 2, Informative

      ...For everything else, there's SmokeScreen.

    2. Re:flash killer by iainl · · Score: 2, Funny

      Hey, at least you Linux lot had a 64-bit Flash in the first place. Us poor Windows users have to drop to the 32-bit browser if we want to run pointless rubbish (well, excluding Windows itself, but you know what I mean).

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
  4. This is why Flash must die. by LWATCDR · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yea Flash is an Open standard....
    Let's move on to HTML5 and or even JavaFX and drop this none standard standard.

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    1. Re:This is why Flash must die. by Richard_at_work · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Having done a fair bit with HTML5 video over the past few weeks, I can safely say that although its looking good, and I enjoyed producing HTML5 video apps, its not a flash killer yet.

      They need to sort out the HTML5 subtitle standard, and someone needs to actually support it.

      They need to sort out the cue points standard, and someone needs to support it. (No, events fired every X ms or so is not enough)

      They need to eliminate cross browser issues with overlaying html over the video stream.

      They need to enable adaptive streaming.

      They need to do a lot more work, but what has been done so far is very nice.

    2. Re:This is why Flash must die. by Cougar+Town · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I use Chrome (5.0.375.70 on 64-bit Ubuntu 9.10) and I find it leaks memory like crazy. I do use it for my daily browsing because like you said it's quite fast... but if I leave it running over night, I come back to work the next morning to find it's consumed all free memory on my system and even enough more to push other apps out to swap. The whole system is horribly slow and killing Chrome instantly frees up half of my RAM and puts things back to normal. If I leave it over a weekend, I might as well just hard reset the machine instead of spending 15 minutes waiting for swap so I can kill Chrome and let things come back into RAM. This is on an i7 980X w/6 GB, so it's not exactly a low-end system.

      It seems to be sites like Facebook with regular dynamic updates that do it. I've started just closing Chrome when I leave for the day.

    3. Re:This is why Flash must die. by d2globalinc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Im sick of these uninformed idiots thinking flash is all about VIDEO.. video is a small piece of the possibilities with flash... It also makes a great cross-platform application development platform, expec with AIR. Steve Jobs doesn't want flash because it would mean the end of his money train called the app store, it has nothing to do with steve's qwest for perfection.. If steve was that into performance, security, etc - he would have stopped making QUICKTIME a long time ago. Flash push'd quicktime outa the way, and thanks to youtube made it the key piece for internet video. Steve has never let that go.. Flash is a GOOD thing for all of us because it means no one OS, person, etc can force us to pay for their exclusive content when they support the flash player. This includes, video playback, apps, etc. As a developer flash enables me to write an application only once that can work online or offline, interface with the OS's native interfaces, and then have it available on Mac, Windows, Linux, Android, etc and thats a lot more potential customers than just the iphone/ipad. And a hell of a lot cheaper for me to develop my apps when I don't have to make a separate one for each platform. Plus I've got control of my application distribution then not Steve Jobs/Apple.

  5. Committed by Enderandrew · · Score: 4, Funny

    By committed, we mean not really committed at all.

    We know that Silverlight is suppoting 64-bit. We know that Microsoft has been pushing 64-bit since 2003. We know all new Windows 7 PCs are coming 64-bit. And we will continue to keep our heads in the sand.

    Thanks for your continued patronage.

    --
    http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
    1. Re:Committed by VGPowerlord · · Score: 4, Interesting

      We know that Silverlight is suppoting 64-bit. We know that Microsoft has been pushing 64-bit since 2003. We know all new Windows 7 PCs are coming 64-bit. And we will continue to keep our heads in the sand.

      You are aware that the default browser in 64-bit Windows is 32-bit Internet Explorer?

      --
      GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
    2. Re:Committed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Want to know why?
      It's because many plugins, such as Flash, don't come in 64-bit flavors.

    3. Re:Committed by squizzar · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Not to mention VS2010 - which is depressingly slow on my x64 Windows 7 machine. I thought there was already some way of running 32 bit Firefox with 32 bit flash on 64 bit linux? That's basically Microsoft's 'Solution'

    4. Re:Committed by Yaztromo · · Score: 3, Informative

      Multimedia operations that are be done in a browser process don't usually benefit from working on big numbers, but they do benefit from crunching lots of smaller numbers at one time. That's what these SIMD extensions do, and a "64-bit" architecture isn't necessary for that.

      No, but on Intel architectures they do benefit from the fact that in x64 mode, you have twice as many general purpose registers on chip. More registers means that more data can be kept in the CPU at once, reducing cache hits and speeding up all computation.

      64-bit compilers for x64 processors can thus better plan register layout. This can make a noticeable difference for all 64-bit applications (beyond the most trivial cases that wouldn't need to use more than 8 general purpose registers in the first place).

      Note that this isn't an intrinsic benefit to 64-bit computing, but more a benefit of 64 bit computing on Intel-based architectures, which have traditionally been low on general purpose registers. PowerPC systems, for example, don't benefit from running most apps in 64-bit mode, because the register count between 32 bit and 64 bit is identical (32 GPR, 32 FPR). x64 was a sufficient compatibility break that it was deemed possible to add more registers in this mode (although IMO, they didn't go quite far enough).

      Yaz.

  6. Footcannon: aim, fire, reload ... by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 4, Funny

    Oh well, it looks like Adobe wants us 64bit Linux users to focus on H.264, which is really great with hardware acceleration in the graphics card. Uh, wait a minute...

    --
    Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
  7. Adobe has one target market: by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Windows devices.

    Is it any wonder that how good Flash for OS X is, Steve banned them from the iP* devices? I don't know how Flash runs on Linux, but on my Mac more than 1-2 youpo^H^H tube videos up in tabs and my fans are maxed out.

    Someone in the Linux community needs to step up tell Adobe to shove it like Apple did and start working towards an HTML5 future.

    The enemy of my enemy is my friend?

    1. Re:Adobe has one target market: by farble1670 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      adobe is one of few major software vendors that has consistently kept their software suite going on mac, even through the bad times.

    2. Re:Adobe has one target market: by russotto · · Score: 4, Informative

      adobe is one of few major software vendors that has consistently kept their software suite going on mac, even through the bad times.

      IIRC, they considered abandoning the Mac back in the non-Jobs era, but the wailing from their customer base reached even their ears. Had they done so they might have managed to destroy Apple.

    3. Re:Adobe has one target market: by toriver · · Score: 2, Informative

      Tell that to Premiere users. Hear the manic laughter.

  8. Re:Not losing much... by chicagoan · · Score: 3, Informative

    The 64bit version of flash on linux was much better for me than the 32bit version running through ndiswrapper. The plugin used to crash for me all the time when wrapped but ever since the 64bit version came out crashes are rare. When I go full screen on say you tube it does get a bit choppy very easily but I'll take that over crashes.

  9. Like in a Kafka novel... by Kidbro · · Score: 5, Funny

    Welcome to the Flash Player 10.1 Forum
    Important: Do not use this forum to discuss the Flash Player 10 64-bit Linux prerelease or Flash Player 10 and earlier release players. Follow these links to discuss these topics:
    Flash Player 10 for 64-bit Linux forum

    Flash Player 10 for 64-bit Linux (Read Only)
    Welcome to the Flash Player 10 for 64-bit Linux Forum

    I'm not sure whether I should laugh or cry... but it reminds me of reading The Trial :)

    --
    May we live long and die out
  10. Dynamic recompilation by tepples · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Flash Player works by recompiling ActionScript into native code. What JIT compiler 1. automatically adjusts to the architecture it's compiled for and 2. was available when Flash Player 10 development started (LLVM wasn't)?

  11. Adobe couldn't pull by Stumbles · · Score: 2, Insightful

    their head out of their ass if they used the worlds largest crane; http://www.dlog.com/fileadmin/user_upload/UEber_uns/Presse/mobil_kran_2_20cm.jpg

    --
    My karma is not a Chameleon.
  12. Re:Flash itself supports H.264 by joe_cot · · Score: 4, Informative

    ====* -- Joke

        O
        \|/ --- You
        / \

    His point was that the big feature for 10.1 was hardware acceleration for flash (and therefore h264), which Linux doesn't get. Linux gets nothing but downsides from this.

  13. Poor Adobe... by gentlemen_loser · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A few days ago, there was a discussion here about how evil Apple was for trying to kill Flash. I said then, and will repeat here: Fuck you Adobe.

    They took their sweet time porting their "cross platform" plugin to Linux, and in the meantime, we were stuck with the barely functioning (although I do not fault them for the effort) GNU implementation. Cross platform to Adobe means: Windows 7, Windows Vitsa, Windows XP, and Mac OS. Personally, I pine for the day that HTML 5 is able to displace Flash, and therefore Adobe, permanently. In my opinion, they have squandered any goodwill towards the open source community. I'll be the first one in line to dance on their grave.

    1. Re:Poor Adobe... by pandrijeczko · · Score: 2, Interesting

      We're currently at a transition point in mobile communications.

      Go back a couple of years and most people were accessing the Internet on desktop and portable computers running Windows, Linux and OS X. Now it's all about portable devices and already Apple's portable devices cannot and will not support Flash.

      I don't see Microsoft being displaced from home and office desktops any time soon but they are certainly not making any great progress in getting an embedded or slimmed-down Windows onto portable devices - it's more likely the case that the only option they have is to wait for a time when portable devices have enough capacity and power to efficiently run a slightly slimmed-down version of Windows, by which time they will already be competing with Android and the other web OSes that are out there.

      I'm mostly Linux user and although I've not seen too many issues with 64-bit Flash so far, Adobe's support of it sucks which ultimately means something else, more than likely HTML 5, will gain more ground on them and start pushing them out.

      It really won't surprise me to see, in about 18 months time, Adobe releasing at least some of the source to Flash as they desperately try to hold onto their market share and to try and encourage the Open Source community to continue using Flash.

      --
      Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
  14. I'm confused by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    We love flash in Apple/Android stories but hate it in Adobe stories... what about other stories?

  15. Got an Education? by m509272 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Stupid comment, get an education. If you want to create your own Flash player you can do that. It is OPEN. Stop drinking the Apple Kool Aid without question.

    http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/

    http://flowplayer.org/

    http://www.swift-tools.net/Flash/

    http://www.swftools.com/tools-category.php?cat=968

    There are also dozens of tools that create Flash apps so you are not restricted to Adobe's tools either.

    1. Re:Got an Education? by datapharmer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      except that the standards published are always a few versions behind and in reality none of those players will play any of the most recent content reliably. Sure, they work for some simple stuff but calling them an open alternative is hardly fair. Sure, they could be if adobe published their intentions in advance but then they would lose their advantage. Same problem with PDF on the creation end. Sure, it is open, but if you want the most recent features in acrobat from a free or even paid alternative, too bad, they haven't been published yet.

      --
      Get a web developer
    2. Re:Got an Education? by dougmc · · Score: 4, Informative

      90% of the flash content on the web does not need any more than Flash 5-6

      [citation needed]

      I think youtube alone will barf on anything lower than Flash 8, and they've probably got more than 10% of the "flash content" (well, content that is displayed through flash) on the web right there.

    3. Re:Got an Education? by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 4, Informative

      While Hulu may require 10.0.22 for the newest features, it requires 10.x just to work at all.

      Critical components of Adobe's Flash implementation formerly used by Hulu (RTMPE) were never documented by Adobe, only a reverse engineered specification for RTMPE exists and anyone implementing that specification within the United States will get a DMCA takedown issued by Adobe.

      Hulu has since moved to an even more "super-secret" undocumented protocol, most likely with Adobe's cooperation.

      So no, Flash is not by any means open, when any attempt to create or distribute a fully compatible alternative within the United States will result in a DMCA takedown notice issued by Adobe.

      --
      retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
    4. Re:Got an Education? by LWATCDR · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How about this.
      YouTube requires Flash 8
      Hulu requires Flash 10
      I will bet that CNN needs better than 6 but I have not tested it.
      If those don't work then you are fubar.
      Nothing wrong with asking for something to backup some bonehead statement like 90 of the web only needs Flash 5 or Flash 6!
      Even that statement doesn't really fly from the start. Does 90% of the web need Flash 6?
      Because if it works on 6 it should work on 5!

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  16. Instructions and download of latest flash 64-bit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Can be found here: http://nxadm.wordpress.com/2009/04/26/install-64-bit-adobe-flash-player-on-ubuntu-904/ (with md5 of the file, up to date with Ubuntu 10.04 and other distributions).

    This guy made it possible for me to convert all my linux installs to 64-bit.

  17. nspluginwrapper by AusIV · · Score: 4, Informative

    I think it's worth pointing out that Ubuntu's repositories have always used 32-bit flash + nspluginwrapper even while 64-bit flash was available. I've never found either of these solutions to be particularly stable, but this doesn't mean 64-bit Linux is going without flash completely.

    1. Re:nspluginwrapper by kg4eyf · · Score: 2, Informative

      Except nspluginwrapper doesn't seem to handle flash 10.1 very well. For example, don't right click on the flash test at http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/ Sadly nspluginwrapper's web site and subversion repository have fallen off the net.

  18. Re:More than video by Shados · · Score: 2, Informative

    Why not just host a browser on a Windows box and serve the applications through Citrix? (It works not unlike X remotely, where the end user experience is roughly like if the application was running locally). Thats what we did at my previous company when stuff was incompatible with user workstations.

  19. Re:Beta closed, not flash by John+Hasler · · Score: 2, Funny

    > Flash 10 had been working a LOT better than previous versions for me...

    That's the explanation, then. The quality got out of control and exceeded their standards. Nothing to do but kill it.

    --
    Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
  20. New "feature" in 10.1: DRM by 200_success · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There is a new clause in the Flash 10.1 EULA that was not present in 10.0:

    7.6 Content Protection Technology. If you Use the Adobe Runtimes to access content that has been protected with Adobe Flash Media Rights Management Server or Flash Access software (“Content Protection”), in order to let you play the protected content, the Software may automatically request media usage rights and individualization rights from a rights server on the Internet, and may download and install required components of the Software, including any available Content Protection Updates. You can find more information on Content Protection at http://www.adobe.com/go/protected_content.

    You have to download a 3.3 MB PDF with 280 pages to find this kind of stuff. There's no telling how far these updates will go (remember TurboTax DRM?).