Flash Player 10 on the Asus EEE PC: A working webcam and proper full screen video

By Liam Green-Hughes, 19 August, 2008
Tags/Keywords
eee
asuseee
flash
flashmeeting
youtube
iplayer
eeepc
adobe

Flash Player 10 Camera configuration on an Asus EEE PCIt's been a long journey to get full Adobe Flash player functionality on Linux machines, but now it looks like that journey is drawing to a close. I've just been playing with a release candidate of Flash Player 10 on my Asus EEE PC and am very happy with the results. It looks like the built in camera will now work under Flash Player, thanks to the addition of support for the Video4Linux Version 2 camera API, which is great news if you use applications that make use of this functionality. The other very noticable change is that full screen video now appears to be working at the correct frame rate making it possible to enjoy full screen videos from such YouTube or BBC iPlayer without the choppiness caused by a slow frame rate. This turns the EEE into a great portable net media player (although be very careful using iPlayer and video sites with a mobile internet dongle or you may end up with a hefty bill!).

To test the new version of Flash Player I downloaded the tarball from Adobe, extracted the libflashplayer.so file and dropped this into the plugins directory of Flock 2, which I have been trying out too. The installation proceedure covered in my earlier blog post Full Screen YouTube and BBC iPlayer on the Asus EEE PC should work here (obviously change the file names and download locations as appropriate). You might have to install the libnss3-dev package if you use Firefox 3 to prevent error messages about some missing libraries. My EEE is of course Ubuntu powered now, so I have not tried this on the default Xandros installation as yet.
It's been a long wait to have full Flash functionality on the Asus EEE PC, but hopefully it will be worth it and expand the number of uses the little machine can be put to; for example The Open University's Flashmeeting allows people to have a multiple person video conference on line without the need for special software or equipment (handy for those meetings where people may be spread out geographically and using different platforms), all it asks for is a webcam, microphone, Flash and a browser. I haven't yet tried other applications such as Seesmic yet, if you try this out it would be great to hear from you.
Judging by the release notes it looks like Adobe have put a lot of effort into bringing the Flash Player up to scratch for Linux computers. I think this was a wise move in the light of the increasing popularity of netbooks It also cements Flash's position as market leader in this area, now that Flash can work on all three main platforms; Linux, Mac and Windows it is one less reason for developers to look into alternatives such as Microsoft Silverlight. 
*** UPDATE ***
Flash Player 10 has officially been released, see http://www.adobe.com/go/getflash
*** UPDATE ***
Flash Player 10 is available from the standard Ubuntu repositories as flashplugin-nonfree (Intrepid) or flashplugin-installer (Jaunty).

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James (not verified)

15 years 8 months ago

hello. After having my asus eee 4g (running on xandros) for 3 months now (i love it), i attempted my first major alteration to it today, i.e. to install flashplayer 10 beta using instructions on this site and others. I failed. The first thing I did was use your advice to back up my version of flash 9

sudo mv /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so.old

After failing to install flash 10 beta, i realised that i now had no flash on my firefox 3 and no knowledge of how to re-install the older version tht i saved, lol, silly me...

Any advice or instructions on what to do next would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I got flash 10 beta installed using theses instructions from eee forum:

1. Open a terminal and type
Code:

tar -xvzf flashplayer10_install_linux_081108.tar.gz

or copy and paste what I have in the code box smile
This gives you three items:
install_flash_player_10_linux/
install_flash_player_10_linux/libflashplayer.so
install_flash_player_10_linux/flashplayer-installer

2. Type sudo bash (still in terminal) and the prompt will change so you know you are now a super user
then type
cd install_flash_player_10_linux
3. Last type
cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins

Close the terminal, start FF and type about:plugins in the address bar and you should now see Flash 10

Phew!! lol. However, on sites like Stickam and 12 second tv, they are failing to detect my webcam at all (before they could detect but not connect). At least flash is working again.
By the way, I really like your site and the interesting articles on it.

I tried your suggestion. this is what I received back. Can you help

tar -xvzf flashplayer10_install_linux_081108.tar.gz
tar: flashplayer10_install_linux_081108.tar.gz: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
tar: Child returned status 2
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors
mic@mic-laptop-7748:~$

Antonius (not verified)

15 years 1 month ago

Well this is very weird. I've done a bunch of updates on default xandros software, trying to get internet radio going (probably more a problem with my uni's proxy than anything else).

Anyway, I've got the full flash10 version of libflashplayer.so in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins directory, but about:plugins won't detect it. Prior to installing the flash10 tarball, about:plugins didn't show any adobe flash player, yet synaptic package manage says it was installed.

Yes, I've played flash media before. The nearest thing about:plugins says I have for a flash player is mplayerplug-in 3.45 for MIME type:video/x-flv. Is mplayer ruining online content for me? Or is it some other wierd FF issue with plugins? Or has one of the eeepc updates done yet more wierd, undesirable stuff to my software?

CONFUSED!? (not verified)

15 years ago

I have an Asus EE PC 900 with Linux and Mozilla Firefox and have been trying to install Adobe flash player for ages. I am able to watch bbc iplayer but cannot watch 4od or itvplayer - both the latter sites tell me to install flash player 10.

I clicked on the link to the Adobe site and it offers me "Adobe Flash Player version 10.0.32.18 Linux" and then gives me 3 versions to download: "YUM for Linux"; ".tar.gz for Linux" and ".rpm for Linux". I have tried all of them, but there is a problem...

The installation instructions tell me to click "run" but the only options I get are a) "open with" or b) "save to disk". If I open, it asks me what to open with - I don't know!!?? If I save to disk, the installation instructions tell me to save to my desktop, but I don't have a "desktop" in the windows sense of the word. there is no place for files to go in my desktop, only tabs: "Internet", "work", "learn", "play", etc.

As an attempt to solve this, I tried saving the file in "myhome/downloads -file manager". When I went into "downloads" then the file was there, but there was no option to "run" it to install it.

I have searched through Adobe help and Asus help pages and tried looking for advice in loads of forums. Someone must know the answer, surely?

Rich (not verified)

14 years 6 months ago

I'd like to install flash player on my ASUS Eee PC. Are there some simple instructions someplace that a non-computer person might understand?

If you hear anything I would love to know as well. I have exactly the same problem.

I think you have to do it through the terminal.

Press Ctrl-Alt-T

But after that I´m lost.
I tried (see below) from a another web site

type tar xvzf flashplayer10_install_linux_081108.tar.gz
then Type sudo ./flashplayer-installer
Type Enter
Type /usr/lib/iceweasel
Type y
Type n

Your browser must be closed for this operation.

But again, I tried this and it didn´t work :(((((

Anybody else???

Hi, did you ever come across those simple instructions for installing flash onto the Asus eee? I got a 2nd hand one as my daughters Santa gift and I need flash on it but can't get simple instructions anywhere. I'm fairly tech savvy but the forums online are just confusing. Dud you find a simple way if doing it and if so can you share it, pleeeeese!

PMCG (not verified)

13 years 11 months ago

my computer cant download flash player!
it is so impossible so someone who as a mini asus eepc at home and has downloaded flash player plz tell me how to
thx

Satish (not verified)

12 years 8 months ago

Good