Wayne D's Blog

(updated August 22th, 2009) Finally thanks to My EeePC Blog there is a simple way to put Flash 10 on your old EEEPC. Some caveats, this method replaces some core libraries and may break other software you have installed. Packages it is known to break are build essentails, vlc, xchm, amule and some others. I used this method and it worked fine for me. The steps are fully explained at http://eeepc-albkwan.blogspot.com/2009/03/install-firefox-3-with-flashplayer-10.html so I won't repeat them here. If you don't want to make major changes to your EEEPC then the methods listed below still work. The Linux version of Flash has an issue with the webcam and microphone permission box popping up and not responding to clicks to be able to dismiss it. See this blog post for a solution. (updated June 7th, 2009) Short answer, getting Flash 10 to run on the EEEPC can be difficult but if you know the tricks you should be able to get it working. (flash bug info moved up the page) If I haven't scared you off yet feel free to read on and good luck. (updated Dec 13th) The release version of Flash 10 is not compatible with the EEEPC because of dependency issues, I have added some information on how to work around this problem, you need to use Svolli's patch utility if you use the latest Flash 10 version. (updated Oct 27th) Looks like I may have spoke too soon. Though Flash 10 works sometimes I have had problems getting it to work on mebeam.com and live.yahoo.com. It has also worked intermittently for me on ustream.tv, the good news, flashcam still works with Linux Flash 10. You can also check out Flash camera support on the EEEPC 701 for my survey of flash based video websites and how to get them to work on the EEEPC 701. Adobe has released a new release candidate beta for Flash 10 for Linux and the good news is that it includes V4L2 support which means that Flash should be able to access the EEEPC's camera without using flashcam. The bad news is that the official release version that came out a few days later doesn't work on the EEEPC because of dependancy issues. When Adobe released Flash 10 for Linux they used a version of a library the EEEPC doesn't have. All is not lost though because the beta that came out a few days before the official release doesn't have this problem and seems to work find, though it has other issues. I managed to find the beta version of the library on my PC. If you want to use the latest version you can download it from Adobe and use Svolli's Flash10 patcher but make sure you read this post for a solution to the popup permission box that won't go away. I leave it up to you to decide which option is best for you, I've tried both and either works fine, my advice is to use Flash 9 on the EEEPC unless you absolutely need Flash 10. I've used the beta without too much trouble and installing it isn't as complicated as Svolli's patch utility, it's up to you to decide which path to take. The instructions below are for how to install the beta version. If you decide you don't want to upgrade the original EEEPC version of Flash you can still use flashcam to access the camera but more and more websites are requiring that you run the latest version of Adobe Flash to access them. To give the Flash 10 beta that works on the EEEPC a try download http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/flashplayer10_install_linux_081108.tar.gz. I'd suggest using the save file option. Then extract the files using the extract all option in the file manager or using the command tar -zxvf flashplayer10_install_linux_081108.tar.gz in a command window. This should leave you with a folder called install_flash_player_10_linux. Open a terminal window using CTRL-ALT-T and enter the following commands. NOTE Each numbered line is a single command and should be entered on a single line.

/home/user> sudo su
eeepc-wdawe:/home/user> cd /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
eeepc-wdawe:/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins> cp libflashplayer.so libflashplayer.so.orig
eeepc-wdawe:/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins> cp /home/user/install_flash_player_10_linux/libflashplayer.so .

To make it easier to type in the long path names you can use the TAB key i.e. typing /home/user/install then pressing TAB should give you /home/user/install_flash_player_10_linux. Now restart your EEEPC and give it a try. If you don't restart before trying it will not work. I've checked the results with 12seconds.tv, live.yahoo.com and ustream.tv and they all worked ok. It's important to remember this is a release candidate so there may still be some bugs. If you want to revert to the original version use these commands.

/home/user> sudo su
eeepc-wdawe:/home/user> cd /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
eeepc-wdawe:/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins> cp libflashplayer.so.orig libflashplayer.so

Today (13-08-08) I received an error message that my camera couldn't be found when trying to use my cam on 12seconds.tv. I was able to fix it by closing the browser and entering the following command to enable the camera in a terminal window eeepc-wdawe:/home/user> echo 1 > /proc/acpi/asus/camera the green light should go on beside the camera If you didn't follow my instructions and back up your previous version and now Flash doesn't work here is the backup file from my EEEPC. Next time follow the instructions!


blog post flash 10 beta install on the EEEPC on 12seconds.tv