Flash player 9.0 and how to in pclinux!

[storkus at storkus.com]

On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:05:41 -0700 (PDT), "eculbert"
<eculbert at yahoo.com> said:
> I need this working before Saturday morning. I have NEVER gotten flash
> going before, but then never asked this group either.

Flash is easy to get running, but is extremely buggy.  Also for some
reason, they don't update the Linux version as much as the windows
version and as a result the Linux version usually has more bugs than the
windows version; people even report the windows version under WINE runs
faster and less buggy than the native Linux version.
But what we'll cover here is the native version since I haven't messed
with WINE that much (yet).

> I am using a p3-800 w/256mb ram

Ok there's your MAJOR problem right there: even on the newest, speediest
hardware Flash is a dog.  On a system like this performance will be VERY
bad.  Keep that in mind if you really decide to go through with this.

> and pclinuxos 2007. Tried snyaptic and it
> went out and downloaded a bunch of stuff with some 'not found'. Still
> boots, so nothing critical damage done.

Since I've never even tried it, I can't answer a lot about it other than
what I read online about it being based on Mandrake (now Mandriva) with
parts from other distros including synaptic and APT from Debian (which I
personally have a lot of trouble with historically).  So anything
specific to this distro I can't help you with, but maybe someone else
here can.

> First question
> 
> Which of the linux 'flavors' on the flash download page is correct one to
> click on?
> 
> tar.gz
> .rpm
> .yum

For quick and dirty, tar.gz, which is also the preferred way for my
preferred distro, Slackware.  For most distros, rpm is the way to go and
should be supported everywhere.  Yum is specific to certain distros and
I don't think yours is one of them.

> Second question:
> 
> Where if there is a choice to put it or how to find it if it 'stuffs it'
> somewhere I don't know where to find it.

If you use rpm, it already knows.  If you use tar.gz, the instructions
should tell you where to put it.
BTW, if you're only using it within a browser, you don't even have to
install it as root: as your normal non-root user, you can install it in
your browsers local directory.  It'll only work for that user, but at
least you won't have to worry about some weird piece of flash code
root-kitting your system.  This is what I did and it works great.

> Sure I will be asking more!
> 
> Again, need the ability to open ustreamtv site on Saturday and interact
> possibly with the person doing it.
> 
> TIA

I just looked at the web site (well, what I could get from Google's
cache since this site is blocked by a stupid firewall here) and it *may*
work with Gnash if all it needs is the ability to play flash video files
(.flv, same as YouTube uses).

And now it just hit me what you'll be doing with this.  At 800 MHz, this
probably won't work as you're trying to do real-time video decoding.  If
they use MPEG-1 (does anyone anymore?) you'll probably be ok, but if
they use something advanced like x.264 (used in MPEG-4) you're screwed
unless the frame rate is rather low.  The situation is far worse if
you're trying to do real-time encoding (upstream): the processor's slow
speed combined with small ram mean this probably won't work at all
unless you can live with 10fps or less.  In other words, web cams with
slow frame rates and low resolutions should be fine, but real-time NTSC
video will be out unless it's compressed with an old technique (MPEG-2
or earlier for decode).

Mike