Howto Install 32 bit Firefox with Flash w/sound and Java for AMD64

[neighborlee]

This howto is not going to be a copy of the old one but will be updated. The old one was for Breezy and a lot has changed since Dapper was released. I have also tested this script with Edgy Knot 2 & 3 and have found no problems. The old one was "Firefox 1.5 with Flash and Java working 100% in amd64" howto by kurushi.
I do not recommend Swiftfox. The person who compiles it takes the FOSS Firefox code, then restricts other people from distributing it. This IMHO is perverting the license.

using your mplayer script to install plugin , I still can not get this website to play videos:

http://www.gamespot.com < click on 'video' under Guitar Hero II

thx
neighbolree()

[RFScheer]

I've done both script and manual installs but am still having trouble with sound in both flashplayer and mplayer. On the other hand, sound is configured fine for xmms, alsaplayer, vlc and totem.

Firefox32 v2.0 is running fine.

One clue is obtained by trying to launch gmplayer from the terminal, which gives an error message indicating no libaudio.so in /usr/lib32/.

The only libaudio type files in /usr/lib32/ are libaudiofile.so symlinks and targets.

There are libaudio.so files in /usr/lib/ on the other hand. Of course, these give 64b error messages when I try to use them in /usr/lib32/.

I'm not sure how to obtain these 32b audio drivers and would LOVE any help!!!

Thanks.

Edit1 - I checked the package notes and found that libaudio is not part of the main sound system but is a network audio file system. I'll poke more into nas config in the mplayer config and see if I can get around this problem that way.

Edit2 - Checking around, I found that these and other 32b files can be downloaded from

http://packages.ubuntu.com/cgi-bin/d...&type=security

I just downloaded the .deb to my desktop, unpacked and put all the /lib32 files into my /lib32 and all the /usr/lib32 files into my /usr/lib32. Now gmplayer works fine. But not flash movie sound. Getting there!! Oh - you can't do a simple Synaptic install of the ia32-libs-openoffice package because it will conflict with mplayer32 already installed.

[RobertR]

Hello again,

Well I have completed the manual install and its all working except for java.

At present after I have peformed all the manual instructions under java, I try to restart the browser and visit the site suggested and the browser crashes.

I notice however when I type:
sudo chown -R robert:uesrs /home/robert/.java

I get the error:
chown: cannot access `/home/robert/.java': No such file or directory

I am using Kubuntu 6.16
Is there anything else I should have installed?

[RFScheer]

I've been testing a new install using Automatix2 and it's all working perfectly. The 32b browser is Swiftfox. Highly recommended!

[Kilz]

I've been testing a new install using Automatix2 and it's all working perfectly. The 32b browser is Swiftfox. Highly recommended!

I dont recomment Swiftfox to anyone who perfers free as in freedom software. It has a proprietary license that restricts one of the 4 freedoms of free software. The freedom to redistribute. Sadly this is taken away because the code it is compiled from without modification is firefox and it has that freedom.
While some may not care about freedom, it is the reason Linux exists. The reason you have Ubuntu. I totaly recommend supporting free as in freedom software. That is why my howto supports Iceweasel, Firefox, and Flock.

[Kilz]

Hello again,

Well I have completed the manual install and its all working except for java.

At present after I have peformed all the manual instructions under java, I try to restart the browser and visit the site suggested and the browser crashes.

I notice however when I type:
sudo chown -R robert:uesrs /home/robert/.java

I get the error:
chown: cannot access `/home/robert/.java': No such file or directory

I am using Kubuntu 6.16
Is there anything else I should have installed?

If you are having problems with the manual howto I suggest running the automatic install script.

[RFScheer]

Kilz, I have benefited greatly from all the work and information you have provided in this forum. My heartfelt thanks to you and absolutely no offense intended or taken by this discussion!!

I did have some issues after a clean install of edgy with your script and also the manual procedure, mainly getting sound to work with flash/java plugins. I enjoyed going through the efforts though because I learned a lot. On the other hand, Automatix2 was problem-free and also more helpful with extra stuff like the nvidia driver, root scripts, etc. After 2 days of testing now, I'm convinced my setup is stable and "permanent" and am very happy with it.

Regarding the swiftfox license, I know there is some debate about it but frankly can't understand the concern. The source is completely open based on the Mozilla public license just like Firefox while the "optimized binaries" targeted for different architectures (hence the "swift" part of the name) are restricted. I use the proprietary nvidia driver for my graphics card and that is far more restrictive in its license, being totally not open. But if nvidia used swiftfox's license as a model, I personally would be VERY happy about that.

On the other hand, it appears that if you really want to speed up the browser, swiftfox and the other firefox derivatives may not do that much good, while opera and konqueror have been measured to be quite a bit faster, according to Wikipedia anyway.

For newbies (that's me!) and especially for AMD64 installs, Automatix is hard to beat!

[DROP]

How can I remove the 32 bit Blackdown jre that your script installed? My other 64 bit Java apps are no longer working because of this...

[Kilz]

How can I remove the 32 bit Blackdown jre that your script installed? My other 64 bit Java apps are no longer working because of this...

Its a package, the easiest way would be to search for blackdown in Synaptic and uninstall it from there.

[DavidWF]

Hey, actually the problem with "Bad Match" X11 errors when Flash loads isn't with whether they use your script or not (though it was broken on Edgy when I tried it, was trying to find stuff in ~/Desktop even if it'd downloaded to somewhere else).

The problem that causes the "Bad Match" some is a known bug, see here:

https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu...ree/+bug/62988

The workaround is to put this in your /usr/bin/firefox:

export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1

Or you could put it in /etc/profile or whatever. Just so long as that variable is set every time you run firefox.

HTH