How do I install Adobe Flash player?

Question

I have had significant problems with watching flash video in 64-bit Ubuntu. Does anyone know of a good way to get flash running on the platform?

Answer 1

For 11.04 and earlier:

Are you installing it from the Ubuntu Software Center?

1. Go to Applications->Ubuntu Software Center.
2. Click on Canonical Partners
3. Click the Adobe Flash Plugin 11 and click install.

Note: this is the method I use on my 64-bit Ubuntu install and it has yet to fail me.

Answer 2

For 11.10 and 12.04

Start Software Center from the Launcher and search for flash

Two entries will be found. The first is the wrapper around the 32bit flash version from Adobe. The second is the 64bit flash version.

Select the second flash entry - if the following picture is seen then you have not already enabled the Canonical Partner Repository previously.

Click More Info

... and click Use this source to enable the Canonical Partner Repository

see the end of this answer for the bug-report

Click Install

Click the Install button and enter your password when prompted. Note - you must have permission to install software.

The installation will proceed:

Once complete - launch Firefox and browse to your Flash Video. Right click and confirm that the latest version of Flash has been installed correctly.

Note - pictures subject to change - the 64bit version has only been recently packaged in the last week before Oneiric release - One issue currently exists:

1. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/flashplugin-nonfree/+bug/870835

In the interim - either use the first "Multiverse" 32bit plugin in the pictures above or use adobe-flashplugin

sudo apt-get install adobe-flashplugin

Answer 3

since you have stated that this is the first time you have ever used ubuntu. i would suggest that you install the package ubuntu-restricted-extras, this includes lots of useful stuff like adobe flash and codecs and MS fonts etc.

you can do this in many ways.

software centre: Click on this link: ubuntu-restricted-extras

terminal: type sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

synaptic: search for the package ubuntu-restricted-extras right click the package and select install, and then select mark. after click the apply button and it will all install.

Answer 4

Have you installed ubuntu-restricted-extras ?

That should install the Adobe Flash plugin.

Answer 5

Use the Ubuntu Software Center (in the Applications menu). In the text entry field (of the search box), you can search for "flash", and the results will populate one Adobe Flash plugin (note the Adobe logo). Choose that, and follow the directions to use the source.

Answer 6

Double check which "plugin" directory is being used. Had to spend a good hour one time just plowing through all the plugin directories till I found which ones my firefox was actually reading, and then ln -sed them all to point to a common one.

End of the day you might be dropping it in the wrong place.

Also start firefox from the command line, you might see errors. Example is running a x86 flash player in an x64 browser(not os) and vice versa. From the command line (%> firefox) you should see the plugin initialization log lines. (maybe try this one first :P)

Also anything in /usr/lib/... is owned by root so you would have to sudo cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/firefox/plugin where .../firefox/plugin points to the location of the firefox plugin directory.

Answer 7

Get my Flash-Aid extension for Firefox. It will take care of downloading and installing the appropriate version for your system architecture and will also remove conflicting plugins. If you are on 64bit, it also allows to install the 64bit preview version, which renders better results than the 32bit with nspluginwrapper.

BTW, if you can't copy anything to ~/.mozilla/plugins folder, then you should check the ownership of the ~/.mozilla folder. It should allow to copy anything there. Unless of course you are referring to a system folder outside your home directory, which requires root privilege.

Answer 8

Definite fix for 64 bit Flash on 11.10

I fixed 64 bit Flash on my 11.10 systems without any wrappers. If you follow the solutions mentioned above you will still end up with the 32 bit version and wrappers.

Note: most of this can be done in a terminal as well, in that case you don't need to install Synaptic. Furthermore, it could be that just executing steps 5, 6 and 8 is enough, but I have not tested this yet.

1. Install Synaptic (Software Center doesn't show the package you need, not in the main items and not within the technical items and not even after it's been installed)
2. Start Synaptic and search for 'flash'
3. Sort by installed state
4. Remove all flash-related packages (such as flashplugin-downloader:i386, flashplugin-installer, ndiswrapper-common etc.). If there's nothing listed you probably don't have Flash installed at all. In that case, just move on to the next step.
5. Enable the Canonical partner repository (see above posts on how to do that)
6. Update the package list (don't count on Software Center doing this for you, it sometimes doesn't) by clicking 'Reload' in
7. Search for 'flash' again
8. Install the package 'adobe-flashplugin'. If it's not in the list, something went wrong with updating the package lists. Try quiting and restarting Synapic, then click on 'Reload'.

One extra package, 'adobe-flash-properties-gtk' will be installed automatically. Nothing more.

Now you will have full 64 bit Flash without any wrappers and other garbage in both Firefox and Chromium. A restart of your browser(s) is required though. If it's still not working, try a reboot (there might be some bogus reference to the old plugins somewhere).

Answer 9

sudo apt-get remove --purge adobe-flashplugin flashplugin* nspluginwrapper
sudo apt-get install --reinstall adobe-flashplugin

Ref: http://ubuntuguide.net/install-adobe-flash-pluginfix-not-working-problem-in-ubuntu-11-10-oneiric

Answer 10

Note: At the time of writing, this method installs Flash player plugin across all currently supported releases and all architecture.

To install the latest Adobe Flash player browser plugin, enter the following command in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install flashplugin-installer

Alternatively, click on flashplugin-installer to install the plugin.

This package is in the mutiverse repository. So, there is no need to enable the Canonical partner repository.

---

Useful links:

• flashplugin-installer vs. flashplugin-nonfree vs. adobe-flashplugin
• https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/Flash#A64_bit_Ubuntu

Answer 11

In case the

sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree

does not work (like in my case and I do not know why...), you may want to give Opera as your browser a try. It is the only one that works for me.

PS: I do not want to advertise Opera a browser, it's just that this was the only solution that somehow worked for me.

Answer 12

It depends on what browser you are using. Google Chrome (not Chromium) has Flash player by default.

Go to www.google.com/chrome and click download Chrome Choose 64-bit .deb (anybody reading this using 32-bit machines should select the 32-bit .deb)

When you click on the .deb file when it has downloaded it will open in the Software Centre. Now click install and when it has finished you can find the browser in Applications -> Internet.

Answer 13

If you have synaptic installed, search for flash and install flashplugin-installer version 11.0.1.152. Flash videos are working for me now.