How to install Flash 9 on FreeBSD 7.1

To get Flash 9 working you’ll first need to upgrade to FreeBSD 7.1. Now 7.1 is not officially out yet, but if you CVSup from RELENG_7 as of about 2 weeks ago, all the necessary linux compatibility code is there already. I assume you know about CVSup and how to upgrade FreeBSD. Once that’s done the rest is straight forward.
Step 1: Enable Linux compatibility and linprocfs

Add linux_enable=”YES” to /etc/rc.conf. Add compat.linux.osrelease=2.6.16 to /etc/sysctl.conf. Add OVERRIDE_LINUX_BASE_PORT=f8 to /etc/make.conf. Add this line to /etc/fstab:

linproc /usr/compat/linux/proc linprocfs rw 0 0

Then run these commands:

mkdir -p /usr/compat/linux/proc
mount /usr/compat/linux/proc
/etc/rc.d/abi start
/etc/rc.d/sysctl start

Step 2: Update ports and install all the needed software

You will now need to install the following ports and their dependencies:

cd /usr/ports/emulators/linux_base-f8 && make install clean
cd /usr/ports/www/linux-flashplugin9 && make install clean
cd /usr/ports/www/nspluginwrapper && make install clean

Follow the nspluginwrapper instructions to enable all available plugins:

# nspluginwrapper -v -a -i
Auto-install plugins from /usr/X11R6/lib/browser_plugins
Looking for plugins in /usr/X11R6/lib/browser_plugins
Auto-install plugins from /usr/local/lib/npapi/linux-flashplugin
Looking for plugins in /usr/local/lib/npapi/linux-flashplugin
Install plugin /usr/local/lib/npapi/linux-flashplugin/libflashplayer.so
into /usr/local/lib/browser_plugins/npwrapper.libflashplayer.so
Auto-install plugins from /root/.mozilla/plugins
Looking for plugins in /root/.mozilla/plugins

Restart or open Firefox 3 and enter about:plugins into your address bar. You should see something like the following:

And that’s it! Open your favourite Flash site and all should work.

If your browser doesn’t register the Shockwave Flash plugin as pictured above, you might need to do a bit of extra work as I had to do on one of my machines:

cd /usr/local/lib/firefox3/plugins && ln -s /usr/local/lib/browser_plugins/npwrapper.libflashplayer.so npwrapper.libflashplayer.so

I’m not sure why one of my machines needed this, but it might happen to you so this is just a heads up.

Update: I have learned that the change with the plugin directory is due to a change in FreeBSD’s Firefox 3 port. If you’re running port version 3.0.1_1 or later you will need to use the new plugin directory as shown above. CVS change history can be seen here.

Enjoy!