No More Gnashing Of Teeth

[herbicide]

See here.

Welcome to the future. Linux is now a first-class desktop operating system citizen. Adobe today released version 10 of its Adobe Flash Player, available now in a variety of convenient packaging formats for Linux, as well as other popular desktop operating systems.

Once upon a time, desktop Linux was a second-class citizen, where Flash was concerned. As recently as 2007, Linux users waited six months for Flash 9 to arrive.

Now, while Microsoft appears bent on leaving Linux users behind on Silverlight technology, its Flash alternative, Adobe has made Linux an equal player. It proudly boasts that "Flash Player content reaches over 98 percent of Internet-enabled desktops," while "80 percent of online videos worldwide are viewed using Adobe Flash technology." It further claims that Flash 9 achieved a 90 percent penetration on Internet-enabled desktops in fewer than nine months.

[...]

Adobe Flash Player 10 is available immediately as a free download for Linux, Windows, and Macintosh platforms. Support for Solaris is expected later this year. Visit Adobe for the download.

Additionally, Adobe will add Flash 10 feature support to Adobe AIR -- another one of its content creation tools -- later this year, it says. AIR lets designers build Flash-based widgets that run outside the browser, on an integrated Flash Player runtime.

 

[Parkydr]

Equal for x86, not arm.

 

[Lorkile]

It still could bring some hope of having it on the Pandora, and make a fine addition to it's software.

 

[Vimacs]

not at all, no

 

[kloplop321]

Well they might do it for arm considering that there is Windows embedded on some devices, and M$ might wine a lot about it.

 

[fischju2000]

They most likely will add ARM support, for the Archos 5 (which runs the OMAP3530) and 7 series. They added ARM support to flash 9 for the Archos 605 and Archos 5/7

BBC's Iplayer works on the Archos 5 but only runs at ~10FPS

 

[nat1192]

I am not seeing the motivation for macromedia (dammit) adobe to port Flash to ARM. There is virtually no possible revenue gain for them, and considering how far along Gnash has come, there would be little point in them creating a 'port'-able version. How much of their userbase could honestly say that they ever use an ARM based computer, and miss the ability to use flash on it. They will never open-source it, which would be the only hope.

The only other small granule of hope is that there are rumors of a flash for the iPhone coming someday, which is ARM based. But if it was shipped as a binary only (99.991415926535% chance), it would need some serious wrangling to integrate it into whatever browser the andora1: is going to use.

 

[Tom`]

It still isn't available for amd64...

I don't see how they can claim 98% penetration, either - surely more than 2% of people are running 64-bit OSes? I guess they could be using 32-bit browsers, but considering that probably close to 90% of the people who bought computers in the last couple years are running stock Vista installs (complete with presumably 64-bit IE versions), it seems a little unlikely that all but 2% have either installed 32-bit Firefox or IE, if it's even possible to install 32-bit IE on Vista 64. Additionally, there has to be some chunk of people who have 32-bit systems who simply haven't installed Flash, for whatever reason.

Of course, I don't have any raw data to back this up, so it' s only a hunch right now...

 

[MagicPants]

It really depends how portable the code is. Sure this is not Flash for Pandora, but it bodes very well for that in the future. If we see the OMAP in more mainstream devices like media players and mids we'll see it on Pandora.

 

[Pleng]

probably close to 90% of the people who bought computers in the last couple years are running stock Vista installs (complete with presumably 64-bit IE versions), it seems a little unlikely that all but 2% have either installed 32-bit Firefox or IE,

Most versions of Vista you will find pre-installed are the 32-bit versions. Even if running on 64-bit hardware.

I am not seeing the motivation for macromedia (dammit) adobe to port Flash to ARM.

There's every incentive. Previously people just used Flash as it was the only realistic way of achieving their goals. Microsoft have now released Silverlight as competition so it's in Adobe's interests to get Flash used as standard on as many platforms as possible.

Hence Adobe opening up the specs so that anybody could make a player for the system (hell if you can get other people to do your work for you, excellent). Hence Adobe releasing Flash 10 on Linux at the same time as on Mac and Linux.

So if Adobe think they can gain enough market-share for Flash to justify the costs of doing so, then they will port to ARM Linux.

 

[Parkydr]

All is not lost, Gnash is getting better and the Wiz is meant to have a flash player.

 

[sindbad]

There was a VLC SoC project to create a player that pretends to be the flash player, but instead just streams the flv and plays it in vlc. It would require plugins for each video site (bbc iplayer, youtube, lulu), but it would be FAST. I have no idea wether or not anyone made it real or not.

 

[johnx]

Here's how flash ends up on embedded platforms: The creator of that platform pays them to port it. No $$$ paid out to Adobe = no flash client.

 

[monkeyo2]

Adobe and ARM are both members of The Open Screen Project, and they are:

QUOTE
a collaboration of over 20 companies with one clear vision: enabling users to access, consume, and share rich content seamlessly across multiple screens — regardless of the devices, operating systems, browsers, or networks used

Flash on ARM Linux would appear to be on their agenda.

 

[cb88]

you realize that site is just adobe right? look at the copyright notices

 

[Tor]

1) That 'all platform' announcement was for x86, as has been said already. It is irrelevant for Pandora.
2) Flash 9 is already ported to ARM, but these versions were never freely downloadable the way the x86 versions are. Specifically, flashplayer v9 is available for the Nokia tablets, Nokia worked with Adobe for this afaik.

 

[monkeyo2]

you realize that site is just adobe right? look at the copyright notices

Of course it is, who else would run a "Make Flash Work on Everything" site?

It probably is all a scheme to try and make Flash so entrenched that Silverlight doesn't have a chance. But Pandora may well benefit from the fallout from Adobe's fight with Microsoft, and who wouldn't like to stick it to the Redmond Giant?

 

[yosh64]

hey

It still isn't available for amd64...

Ya know on linux you can run the 32bit version of flash 9 (and maybe flash 10 now also, I haven't checked it out) on x86_64, this is what I do , ya juse use the lib32 packages. BTW, I do the same for WINE on x86_64 .

But yea, it works even with x86_64 browser packages .

cyas

 

[fischju2000]

1) That 'all platform' announcement was for x86, as has been said already. It is irrelevant for Pandora.
2) Flash 9 is already ported to ARM, but these versions were never freely downloadable the way the x86 versions are. Specifically, flashplayer v9 is available for the Nokia tablets, Nokia worked with Adobe for this afaik.

And if people had read my post they would have noted that the Opera browser on the Archos 605 and Archos 5 (which has an OMAP3530) both have flash 9, and Archos will likely work with Adobe for Flash 10 on the 5 and 7 series.

Speaking of the N810 and Flash 9, a port of its Maemo OS to the Pandora could give us flash 9.

 

[Kyo]

the archos port means that it would be not the least bit of effort to port it to the pandora for adobe, still, I doubt they will do it for free.

Maybe somebody will hack the flash 9 from the archos? Well either way, we'll get flash eventually.