Browser Plugins

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(Redirected from Flash and Adobe Acrobat browser plugins)

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These plugins work in Firefox, Opera and WebKit derivatives.

Adobe Flash Player

Use pacman to install Flash Player:

# pacman -S flashplugin

In addition, it may be needed to install ttf-ms-fonts in order to properly render text:

# pacman -S ttf-ms-fonts

Configuration

To change general plug-in preferences (privacy settings, resource usage, etc.), right click on embedded Flash content and choose preferences from the menu, or go to the Macromedia website. There, a Flash animation will give access to local settings.

Adobe Reader

Due to licensing restrictions, Adobe Reader cannot be distributed from any of the official Arch repositories. There are versions available in the AUR. Please note that no matter how many votes it receives, this package will never be included in the [community] repository. See this comment for an explanation.

Also, there are localizations available in many languages.

32-bit

32-bit AUR package: acroread

It installs the Acrobat Reader application as well as the Firefox plugin. Note however that hardware assisted rendering is unavailable under Linux (at least using a Geforce 8600GTS with driver version 185.18.14).

64-bit

Adobe Reader is a closed-source application, meaning that users desiring a 64-bit binary have no other choice other than to wait for official support. Workarounds to be considered:

Follow this guide originally posted in the forums. It involves creating a chrooted environment that could be reused for other 32-bit only applications.

Or, simply get the 32-bit binary along with the 32-bit dependencies. Install bin32-acroread. Also, consider installing the extra font packages suggested by the package. Be advised that the Firefox plugin cannot be used directly with this binary - it will not load in the 64-bit browser. nspluginwrapper is required to load the plugin. Finally, be sure to run:

$ nspluginwrapper -v -a -i

as a normal user. This checks the plugin directory and links the plugins as needed. Everything should work as expected now.

Citrix

See: Citrix

Java

Either Java package contains the Java runtime as well as the fitting browser-plugin.

# pacman -S openjdk6

Or install the proprietary version of Java:

# pacman -S jre

Keep in mind that the open-source and closed-source versions can not be installed in parallel. The open-source version is nearly perfect at the time of writing and there is mostly no need anymore to install the proprietary version of Java.

Video Plugins

Gecko Media Player

A good replacement of the now obsolete mplayer-plugin is Gecko Media Player. More stable combined with MPlayer 1.0RC2. (No more crashes with Apple Trailers.)

# pacman -S gecko-mediaplayer

Totem Plugin

The totem-plugin might be the choice for those seeking a gstreamer-based plugin:

# pacman -S totem-plugin gvfs

Troubleshooting

Adobe Reader fails to run

Note: This problem may not exist anymore.

Due to a missing path one may have to run:

# ln -s /usr/share/Adobe/Reader8/bin/acroread /usr/bin

Flash blocks sound and/or delayed playback

If sound is delayed within flash video and/or if Flash stops sound from any other application, then:

# vim /etc/rc.conf

Locate the MODULES array and add snd-pcm-oss to banned modules, which should look like:

MODULES=( !snd-pcm-oss )

Flash performance

Adobe's Flash plug-in has some serious performance issues, specially when CPU frequency scaling is used. There seems to be a policy not to use the whole CPU workload, so the frequency scaling governor does not clock the CPU any higher. To work around this issue, see: cpufrequtils#Changing the ondemand governor's threshold

If the system has an ATI card, try disabling AIGLX by editing /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

Option "AIGLX" "False"

Plugins are installed but not working

If Firefox is not using the plugins after installing them (verifiable by typing about:plugins in the address bar and hitting return.), the problem is most likely erroneous permissions. Fix those with:

# chmod 755 /usr/lib/mozilla
# chmod 755 /usr/lib/mozilla/extensions

After restarting Firefox plugins should function correctly.

If the above suggestion does not fix anything, and about:plugins still reports that no plugins are installed, run the following command (replace the version in the path with the appropriate one):

# ln -sv /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins /usr/lib/firefox-3.0/plugins

Restart Firefox and about:plugins should list all of the currently installed plugins.

Another common problem is that the plugin path is unset. This typically occurs on a new install, when the user has not re-logged in before running Firefox after the installation. Test if the path is unset:

$ echo $MOZ_PLUGIN_PATH

If unset, then either relogin, or source /etc/profile.d/mozilla-common.sh and start Firefox from the same shell:

$ . /etc/profile.d/mozilla-common.sh && firefox

Plugins cannot be downloaded

Note: This issue, or at least its proposed solution, only applies to Firefox.

In some cases, users are not able to download (and install) any of the Firefox plugins. The solution is adding the following line in /etc/hosts:

64.50.236.214   releases.mozilla.org

Gecko Media Player Won't Play Apple Trailers

If Apple Trailers appear to start to play and then fail, try setting the user agent for your browser to:

QuickTime/7.6.2 (qtver=7.6.2;os=Windows NT 5.1Service Pack 3)