Firefox and Macromedia® Flash™ Plugin
Macromedia® Flash™ plugin is not available for FreeBSD. However, a software layer (wrapper) for running the Linux version of the plugin exists. This wrapper also supports Adobe® Acrobat® plugin, RealPlayer® plugin and more.
According to the version of FreeBSD you run various steps are required:
- Under FreeBSD 7.XInstall the www/nspluginwrapper port. This port requires emulators/linux_base-fc4 which is a large port.
The next step is to install the www/linux-flashplugin9 port. This will install Flash 9.X, this version is known to run correctly under FreeBSD 7.X.
Note: On FreeBSD versions older than FreeBSD 7.1-RELEASE you have to install www/linux-flashplugin7 and skip the linprocfs(5) part below.
- Under FreeBSD 8.XInstall the www/nspluginwrapper port. This port requires emulators/linux_base-f10 which is a large port.
The next step is to install the www/linux-f10-flashplugin10 port. This will install Flash 10.X, this version is known to run correctly under FreeBSD 8.X.
This version will require the following link to be created:
# ln -s /usr/local/lib/npapi/linux-f10-flashplugin/libflashplayer.so \
/usr/local/lib/browser_plugins/
Once the right Flash port, according to the FreeBSD version you run, is installed, the plugin must be installed by each user with nspluginwrapper:
% nspluginwrapper -v -a -i
The Linux® process file system, linprocfs(5) has to be mounted on /usr/compat/linux/proc, if one wants to play Flash animations. This can be done via the following command:
# mount -t linprocfs linproc /usr/compat/linux/proc
This point can be automated at boot time with the addition of the matching line in /etc/fstab:
linproc /usr/compat/linux/proc linprocfs rw 0 0
Then, start your browser, enter about:plugins in the location bar and press Enter. A list should appear with all the currently available plugins.
6.2.4 Firefox and Swfdec Flash Plugin
Swfdec is the library for decoding and rendering Flash animations. And Swfdec-Mozilla is a plugin for Firefox browsers that uses the Swfdec library for playing SWF files. It is still in heavy development.
If you cannot or do not want to compile it, just install the package from the network:
# pkg_add -r swfdec-plugin
If the package is not available, you can compile and install it from the Ports Collection:
# cd /usr/ports/www/swfdec-plugin
# make install clean
Then, restart your browser for this plugin taking effect.
July 21, 2010 at 12:30 pm
Thank you for taking precious time to create this. It’s not easy to find something both free of charge and high quality like this post.
December 18, 2010 at 3:46 pm
fetch: http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/install_flash_player_10_linux.tar.gz: size mismatch: expected 4760657, actual 4911328
I tried putting the newer file in the right place with no luck.