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I am brand new to Linux so can you (try) to keep answers as simple as possible. A few days ago I did a fresh install of Ubuntu 11.10 on an old computer (just under 500mb of RAM) and once I had completed the install. I installed the restricted extras thingy. I then tried to load up a Flash video in Firefox but it failed: all it would show is a blank box where the video should have been.

At this point I tried various different video sites (iplayer, Youtube, etc) and I even tried opening up a downloaded flash game in Firefox but still I was just getting a blank box where the flash content should have been.

Next I tried doing a fresh install of Ubuntu 12.04 32bit, installing the restricted extras thingy again but it still just showed up the blank box. Finally I tried various different methods for getting it to work including:

  • Trying a different browser~ same issue
  • Trying different websites~ same issue
  • Reinstalling the Flash plugin via the software center~ same issue
  • Reinstalling the Flash plugin via the Adobe website~ same issue
  • Installing Flash-aid (a plugin designed to solve any issues with flash)~ same issue
  • Disabling the flash plugin for Firefox~ Flash was no longer detected so the websites told me that I needed to install the flash plugin to play the content

Not really sure what else to try???

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  • Welcome on AskUbuntu! Just to be sure could you please tell if your computer is 32bits or 64bits? Could you try in Google Chrome (not Chromium)?
    – Agmenor
    Apr 29, 2012 at 19:57
  • It's 32bits, installing Chrome meant that flash worked but only in that browser which is a pain but I can put up with it. Unfortunately any flash videos are really jumpy and the audio is out of sync, Is this all that can be expected considering there is less than 500mb of ram?
    – user58376
    Apr 29, 2012 at 20:20
  • You say videos are choppy. have You tried with low resolution videos? That seems a lot like a PC performance issue to me
    – Misery
    Apr 29, 2012 at 20:38
  • I've tried it with Youtube 240p videos and they are just as choppy, I seem to find it's only affecting the videos once they are in full screen so you're probably right :(
    – user58376
    Apr 29, 2012 at 20:50
  • Try Google Chrome at Ubuntu OS.
    – user58557
    Apr 30, 2012 at 6:12

1 Answer 1

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Flash with under 500MB RAM is not likely to be pretty. You might want to try HTML 5 video on sites like youtube that support a choice for most videos. You could also try gnash which is an open source flash implementation that is not as resource hungry.

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  • just to add more info to your neat answer,the url for HTML5 video on youtube is youtube.com/html5 :-)
    – dlin
    Jun 4, 2012 at 11:05

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