Subject: Flash 9 on NetBSD
To: None <netbsd-users@NetBSD.org>
From: Wouter Klouwen <dublet@dublet.org>
List: netbsd-users
Date: 11/04/2006 19:01:26
Hello list,

this weekend instead of doing some useful paperwork I have been trying to
get flash 8 to work on NetBSD. In my search I came across a little nugget of
information that said Adobe weren't going to do flash 8 for Linux at all,
skipping straight to 8.5. 
The current state of flash 9 for Linux is that a beta has been released:
	http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer9/
After finding this, downloading it, and installing it in a linux emulated
browser (in my case netscape 7), I got a number of dynamic loading errors
concerning gtk2. These were resolved after installing emulators/suse91_gtk2.

I am pleased to say that this works rather well. Except for one thing.
Sound. By default the flash plugin uses ALSA support (boo!). This of course
fails for the environment. Fortunately there is light at the end of the
tunnel:
	http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flash_Player:Additional_Interface_Support_for_Linux
Adobe have created a "support" library for flash, for various things, such
as SSL support and more importantly OSS support.
But unfortunately won't work if it's compiled within a NetBSD environment,
as they give a source only.

So all that NetBSD needs for supporting flash 9 with sound is to compile the
given flashsupport file on a SuSE box, so it can be distributed in binary
form. I myself have no Linux machine available, so this is really a
question if anybody could arrange for this in binary so form?

This so I can waste even more time watching YouTube, but with sound. ;)

Thanks in advance,

	--Wouter