View Full Version : IYO: Who is to blame for the awful flash functionality in Linux/FOSS?
RichardLinx
February 7th, 2010, 02:30 PM
In your opinion, who is to blame for the terrible performance of flash on the Linux desktop?
Perfect Storm
February 7th, 2010, 02:32 PM
==> Adobe <==
SuperSonic4
February 7th, 2010, 02:33 PM
==> Adobe <==
/thread
RichardLinx
February 7th, 2010, 02:33 PM
Poll added. Something went wrong the first time...
speedwell68
February 7th, 2010, 02:36 PM
Don't know, mine is fine.
chewearn
February 7th, 2010, 02:38 PM
Others: everyone is to blame.
roy12499
February 7th, 2010, 02:39 PM
Adobe!!!
RichardLinx
February 7th, 2010, 02:41 PM
Don't know, mine is fine.
You can play flash content in fullscreen, with sound and animations/video synced?
A youtube video in HD and in fullscreen?
A newgrounds (or any) flash game made with the latest version of Flash (Adobe Flash CS4) ?
I doubt it. But if you can then Linux has really come far since I last used it.
Others: everyone is to blame.
Everyone?
NoaHall
February 7th, 2010, 02:44 PM
You can play flash content in fullscreen, with sound and animations/video synced?
A youtube video in HD and in fullscreen?
A newgrounds (or any) flash game made with the latest version of Flash (Adobe Flash CS4) ?
I doubt it. But if you can then Linux has really come far since I last used it.
Everyone?
I can, and it works better than the Windows version, as it's 64 bit.
jrothwell97
February 7th, 2010, 02:48 PM
Adobe.
NEXT!
I can, and it works better than the Windows version, as it's 64 bit.
Rest assured, your case is an exception.
chewearn
February 7th, 2010, 02:58 PM
Everyone?
Yes.
Web governing bodies: failed to define an open standard for dynamic web content.
Users: providing a market for dynamic web content.
Adobe: exploiting said market.
Web designers: willing to be exploited in said market.
Linux communities/developers: 1001 ways to interface to audio and video layers.
Linux communities/developers: 1001 distributions making it cost ineffective to support.
Some Linux Users: willing to be exploited by Adobe, by not boycotting everything to do with Flash.
Anyone else I missed to blame? Right, forgot myself.
Myself: I am to blame because I am one of the person in "Some Linux Users".
Странник
February 7th, 2010, 02:58 PM
Adobe..It's their technology
If it was OSS, then it would be either fixed/abandoned
blueshiftoverwatch
February 7th, 2010, 05:38 PM
I don't understand why Flash support is as bad as it is. I don't remember it ever being this bad in the past. You'd think that with the widespread adoption of Ubuntu as the defacto desktop distro of choice and the fact that Linux is making inroads further into the desktop market than ever before that they'd release a decent product. I hope the Gnash project comes along.
The main problem I have is that Flash objects fail to load up in the first place probably 1/6th of the time. Forcing me to have to restart the browser to view it.
RichardLinx
February 8th, 2010, 02:17 AM
Bump. Just want to see If I can get a few more votes on this poll. So far it's 86.67% of blame on Adobe. Not surprising.
szymon_g
February 8th, 2010, 02:26 AM
flash works fine on chrome/chromium, it's sh***y on firefox on linux. guess... who is to blame?
LightB
February 8th, 2010, 02:30 AM
Other: flash sucks on anything. I don't know what you're talking about.
Gallahhad
February 8th, 2010, 02:43 AM
Flash performance is terrible in Windows as well.
Adobe really needs to figure it out.
mickie.kext
February 8th, 2010, 02:57 AM
Adobe sux
Other: flash sucks on anything. I don't know what you're talking about.
Adobe makes flash, so you should blame Adobe for making flash suck on anything. I say we nuke 'em.
jrusso2
February 8th, 2010, 03:01 AM
I dunno flash always worked fine for me.
Kenny_Strawn
February 8th, 2010, 03:38 AM
I suspect the real culprit for poor Linux Adobe Flash Player performance is Apple dictating to Adobe about where the Flash Player should be. This, because Adobe is friends with Apple.
LightB
February 8th, 2010, 04:00 AM
You people are silly. At least you got flash on linux. I know adobe/macromedia only did it for business interest like any enterprise but they could have just said screw off to linux. I guess then gnash is all we would have had to view dancing cats on youtube.
chris200x9
February 8th, 2010, 04:06 AM
How is this even a question, a piece of software runs horribly so it's obviously the operating systems fault.
bowens44
February 8th, 2010, 04:11 AM
You can play flash content in fullscreen, with sound and animations/video synced?
A youtube video in HD and in fullscreen?
A newgrounds (or any) flash game made with the latest version of Flash (Adobe Flash CS4) ?
I doubt it. But if you can then Linux has really come far since I last used it.
Everyone?
I don't know what newgrounds is but the others, no problem at all.
Kenny_Strawn
February 8th, 2010, 04:14 AM
How is this even a question, a piece of software runs horribly so it's obviously the operating systems fault.
Blame the operating system all you want, but in the end Adobe can also intentionally design Linux Flash to perform badly as an open source software bash.
RichardLinx
February 8th, 2010, 04:21 AM
I don't know what newgrounds is but the others, no problem at all.
Newgrounds is one of the flash game/movie sites that popped up in the 90s, I grew up with it. :)
KiwiNZ
February 8th, 2010, 04:30 AM
Blame the operating system all you want, but in the end Adobe can also intentionally design Linux Flash to perform badly as an open source software bash.
Why on earth would they do that? what would be their gain?
That makes no sense at all.
sudoer541
February 8th, 2010, 04:40 AM
I blame Linux and FSF because they are not doing anything other than just creating their own version of adobe flash that does not even work.
eddietours
February 8th, 2010, 04:46 AM
I have a system 76 laptop flash works just fine
lykwydchykyn
February 8th, 2010, 04:51 AM
It's not a question of fault, it's a question of responsibility. When you choose to release code that is proprietary, you are taking full responsibility for how it runs. You have taken away anyone else's ability to fix or even identify problems properly, so it is up to you to make sure it runs correctly.
To those who feel we poor Linux users should be grateful to Adobe for taking precious development resources away from other platforms to grant us a pittance, I think you are wrong. Adobe is a contributing member to the Linux foundation. Linux may be insignificant on the desktop, but it is a competitor in the mobile space where flash is becoming a coveted feature. Point being, Adobe has demonstrated interest in keeping flash functional on Linux. It's not a pittance.
Moreover, if there are problems with the Linux kernel or related projects that make things difficult for Flash, Adobe can submit patches to fix it.
Finally, FOSSers aren't the only ones who are put off by Adobe's handling of Flash. Microsoft's response was to release Silverlight. Steve Jobs's response is to push HTML5. I get the impression a lot of companies are tired of having to kowtow to Adobe to give their customers a full Internet experience.
Kenny_Strawn
February 8th, 2010, 04:51 AM
I have a system 76 laptop flash works just fine
Flash also works perfectly on my home-built media center rig with an AMD Phenom X4 9750 CPU. However, that's a pretty powerful computer.
I also have to tell you: I use the genuine Adobe Flash Player for Linux, not the buggy Swfdec.
eddietours
February 8th, 2010, 04:57 AM
is nice to know that some people have flash running well on there Computers :p
LightB
February 8th, 2010, 05:00 AM
It's not a question of fault, it's a question of responsibility. When you choose to release code that is proprietary, you are taking full responsibility for how it runs. You have taken away anyone else's ability to fix or even identify problems properly, so it is up to you to make sure it runs correctly.
To those who feel we poor Linux users should be grateful to Adobe for taking precious development resources away from other platforms to grant us a pittance, I think you are wrong. Adobe is a contributing member to the Linux foundation. Linux may be insignificant on the desktop, but it is a competitor in the mobile space where flash is becoming a coveted feature. Point being, Adobe has demonstrated interest in keeping flash functional on Linux. It's not a pittance.
Moreover, if there are problems with the Linux kernel or related projects that make things difficult for Flash, Adobe can submit patches to fix it.
Finally, FOSSers aren't the only ones who are put off by Adobe's handling of Flash. Microsoft's response was to release Silverlight. Steve Jobs's response is to push HTML5. I get the impression a lot of companies are tired of having to kowtow to Adobe to give their customers a full Internet experience.
Yeah, that's true. But the topic title states or implies that flash is only bad on Linux/FOSS. If it's bad, it's bad all around.
I mean, it's not like mikerowesoft made up Sliverlight because they care how flash runs on Linux.
cariboo
February 8th, 2010, 05:01 AM
On my main home and office system flash runs well, both have Nvidia graphics adapters. My Atom powered media center pc just doesn't have the power to run hd flash full screen, it has the Intel 945 chipset.
chris200x9
February 8th, 2010, 05:55 PM
Blame the operating system all you want, but in the end Adobe can also intentionally design Linux Flash to perform badly as an open source software bash.
obviously no one get's sarcasm :(
NoaHall
February 8th, 2010, 05:57 PM
Blame the operating system all you want, but in the end Adobe can also intentionally design Linux Flash to perform badly as an open source software bash.
You're insane, Sharon. Be quiet, until you really know something before you start talking about it.
Perfect Storm
February 8th, 2010, 05:58 PM
obviously no one get's sarcasm :(
Sometimes sarcasm is hard to get in writing form, that's why we have smilies ;)
thatguruguy
February 8th, 2010, 06:04 PM
Hanarry Jaya.
davec64
February 8th, 2010, 06:06 PM
I'm on 64 bit now and have had none of the problems that arised with the 32 bit versions.
Warpnow
February 8th, 2010, 06:07 PM
In your opinion, is the sky blue?
The answer is adobe. Its not an opinion question.
beastrace91
February 8th, 2010, 06:07 PM
I can, and it works better than the Windows version, as it's 64 bit.
Calling shinangins on this one...
~Jeff
Simian Man
February 8th, 2010, 06:15 PM
I have been able to play flash flawlessly on Linux - including fullscreen - ever since 2006 or so on multiple computers. Seriously is this still a problem for people? It may take more CPU than on Windows - I honestly don't know - but for functionality it works pretty much perfectly.
pirate_tux
February 8th, 2010, 06:53 PM
Only loosers use Flash.
HTML5 is the way to go.
Ylon
February 8th, 2010, 07:06 PM
Other (Please Explain)
Websites which made a closed source application a universal standard.
VertexPusher
February 17th, 2010, 01:49 PM
In your opinion, who is to blame for the terrible performance of flash on the Linux desktop?
Linux.
http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2010/01/solving_different_problems.html
HTML5 will have exactly the same problems.
ikt
February 17th, 2010, 01:53 PM
Linux.
http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2010/01/solving_different_problems.html
HTML5 will have exactly the same problems.
wut? I'm running youtube with html5 now and it's going great!
http://www.youtube.com/html5
I can't stand when it loads flash :/
I can, and it works better than the Windows version, as it's 64 bit.
I have the latest 64 bit flash and it's terrible:
http://ikt.id.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/flashsucks.jpg
scouser73
February 17th, 2010, 02:05 PM
Flash works fine for me.
howlingmadhowie
February 17th, 2010, 02:09 PM
Linux.
http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2010/01/solving_different_problems.html
HTML5 will have exactly the same problems.
Yeah, there was a fun post on phoronix recently where someone was saying that it's all linux's fault and html5 is just as bad. The trouble is, some other poster posted some benchmarks showing that html5 works fine with only a fraction of the processor loading.
VertexPusher
February 17th, 2010, 02:25 PM
The trouble is, some other poster posted some benchmarks showing that html5 works fine with only a fraction of the processor loading.
Link?
Actually I've done some benchmarks too. And my conclusion is that video playback in dedicated media players such as Totem gets exactly as slow as in Flash if the Xvideo overlay is disabled. And Flash CANNOT use Xv because it's more than a media player.
So yeah, show me that HTML5 benchmark. I hope it didn't compare Theora in HTML5 vs. H.264 in Flash, because that would be moronic.
gnomeuser
February 17th, 2010, 02:41 PM
Adobe, though I don't think flash only performs poorly and unreliably on Linux. I have it on my HTC Hero where it is laggy and slow, I've tried it on Windows and the result wasn't much better.
Even with hardware acceleration it runs poorly.
The design must be wrong, and given that Adobe has full and final control over not just the code but the standard and the distribution but also the development roadmap there is little anyone else can do.
There are things we can, and are doing increasingly, better. We can write better graphics drivers and provide solid easy to use (and more importantly hard to get wrong) APIs. In the end though we cannot fix Flash because of Adobe.
I am hoping as Silverlight and HTML5 get better uptake we will see Flash decrease in use. I doubt it will ever be fixed but perhaps we can reach a point where Flash is no longer critical to providing an internet experience. Big consumers of Flash such as Dailymotion and YouTube are already moving away from it, others will follow in time as alternatives mature and come in demand.
This is all secondary to getting agreed upon standards for video, audio and other content that everyone can distribute, develop and use. It is a fight that exists for all competitors to Flash. It is also a clear failing on the part of standardization bodies and governments around the world for not pushing this issue towards a solution.
Personally I hope that Silverlight will provide us with a strong candidate for the next generation web. It is as far as I can tell well engineered, has desirable functionality not just for RIA development and deployment but also for te desktop. It leverages an existing well tested framework and finally we have a 100% open source implementation that is garuanteed to be compliant to the Silverlight test suites.
neu5eeCh
February 17th, 2010, 03:32 PM
In your opinion, who is to blame for the terrible performance of flash on the Linux desktop?
Linux.
madnessjack
February 17th, 2010, 03:38 PM
WHY should Adobe HAVE TO create a Flash version to work with Linux?
Be grateful they've even considered it.
NOT Adobe's fault. Just a fact of life. Tiny desktop-market share == little attention. It's just how it is.
Dougie187
February 17th, 2010, 03:47 PM
WHY should Adobe HAVE TO create a Flash version to work with Linux?
Be grateful they've even considered it.
NOT Adobe's fault. Just a fact of life. Tiny desktop-market share == little attention. It's just how it is.
You're right up to the "NOT Adobe's fault" part. Because, it is their fault. But they shouldn't have to create it to work well, and we are/should be grateful that they made what they did make, and are continuing to work on it.
Personally, I don't see how anyone can blame something on linux in general.
ikt
February 17th, 2010, 04:00 PM
NOT Adobe's fault. Just a fact of life. Tiny desktop-market share == little attention. It's just how it is.
That statement is a contradiction, on the one hand you say it's not adobes fault, on the other you say it's ok that it's their fault, because linux has a tiny market share, therefore they are excused from making a quality product.
Here's some comments from someone in the know:
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/01/googles-dont-be-evil-mantra-is-********-adobe-is-lazy-apples-steve-jobs/
About Adobe: They are lazy, Jobs says. They have all this potential to do interesting things but they just refuse to do it. They don’t do anything with the approaches that Apple is taking, like Carbon. Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy, he says. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash, he says. The world is moving to HTML5.
Good, if you want to shift blame from adobe onto linux, then linux will have no problems kick starting a format that is compatible and runs well on it.
madnessjack
February 17th, 2010, 04:02 PM
You're right up to the "NOT Adobe's fault" part...
Personally, I don't see how anyone can blame something on linux in general.
I didn't mean to have a go at Linux. What I meant is there is no blame. Like it's not Microsoft's fault I can't play Minesweeper on OSX, and it's not Apple's either.
It's not Adobe's fault and it's not Linux's fault.
Very simple.
Primefalcon
February 17th, 2010, 04:02 PM
flash works fine for me, I view content fullscreen all the time.
madnessjack
February 17th, 2010, 04:04 PM
That statement is a contradiction, on the one hand you say it's not adobes fault, on the other you say it's ok that it's their fault, because linux has a tiny market share, therefore they are excused from making a quality product.
They're not "excused" at all, they simply have no obligation.
VertexPusher
February 17th, 2010, 05:08 PM
flash works fine for me, I view content fullscreen all the time.
Same here. But people want Flash to work with Compiz enabled, on an Intel graphics card, with a CPU from 2007, using a sound daemon (PulseAudio) that takes 30% CPU all by itself doing nothing.
Ain't gonna happen, and it's not Adobe's fault.
madnessjack
February 17th, 2010, 05:33 PM
Same here. But people want Flash to work with Compiz enabled, on an Intel graphics card, with a CPU from 2007, using a sound daemon (PulseAudio) that takes 30% CPU all by itself doing nothing.
Ain't gonna happen, and it's not Adobe's fault.
Ahem, 2005 actually...
But you got to understand why people feel bitter if on the same machine running XP or Vista is smooth and fast but when they switch to Ubuntu it doesn't stand a chance.
arnab_das
February 17th, 2010, 05:52 PM
i dont know who is to blame. adobe apparently seems to be the culprit, but it does a wonderful job with flash for windows. the reason why the linux version of flash isnt as developed is pretty simple. the user base of linux is hardly anything to encourage adobe to pour resources into linux flash's development. same logic applies for the mac version as well. after all, adobe is a commercial organisation, it will look at whats commercially viable for them and then take a decision. and since it isnt open source we really cant do much about it.
are we linux users to blame for this? obviously not.
what can we do? well, for one we can help develop the open source version of flash, which as of now i hear is very buggy.
anything else we can do? erm...nothing much, but we can hope html5 kicks in real soon! :P
Zoot7
February 17th, 2010, 06:04 PM
WHY should Adobe HAVE TO create a Flash version to work with Linux?
Be grateful they've even considered it.
NOT Adobe's fault. Just a fact of life. Tiny desktop-market share == little attention. It's just how it is.
I agree with you about the lack of marketshare, but there have been reports of flash issues with OSX too, which is a lot less understandable given OSX isn't, for want of a better term, as "up in the air" that the linux desktop is.
Anyway as for me, for the last few years flash has always worked a-okay for me, but I always use the packages/files provided directly by Adobe.
Ric95
February 17th, 2010, 06:49 PM
I voted 'other', to point to website developers depending too heavily on .flv as a media format. With a little work, the same fuctionality can be had with another mpeg4 like h264 coupled with an application helper like vlc.
handy
February 17th, 2010, 07:23 PM
My impression is that it is a combination of GPU drivers & Flash.
I only say that, as I'm starting to see the Flash performance improve as the ATi open-source support improves.
The people on the cutting edge are saying that not all of the problems are here on the Linux side, Flash has inherent problems also.
All of these problems will pass... ;)
MasterNetra
February 17th, 2010, 07:31 PM
Other - Those who sit complain about it and don't do anything to improve it. Got a problem let the developers at least know what issues you are having.
blur xc
February 17th, 2010, 07:47 PM
You can play flash content in fullscreen, with sound and animations/video synced?
A youtube video in HD and in fullscreen?
A newgrounds (or any) flash game made with the latest version of Flash (Adobe Flash CS4) ?
I doubt it. But if you can then Linux has really come far since I last used it.
Everyone?
#1- yes
#2- yes
#3- dunno what a "newgrounds" flash game is, but I can play flash games just fine, and the frame rate plays faster than in Windows (most games). There's one exception- fishworld on Facebook (my wife plays it) has a few issues w/ the flyout menus.
(didn't real the whole thread)
From my observations I've noticed a patterns regarding poor flash performance. #1- video drivers. I guess the better supported your video hardware, the better your linux flash experience. Lets look at this scientifically. I have a pretty darn good flash experience on my box. You (as in anyone who doesn't) and I are running the SAME flash player. Therefore, what are the variables causing the trouble? One fact- CPU usage on Linux is higher than Windows, I have a moderately powerful CPU. Fact two- video drivers are spotty for some video cards, I'm running a well supported, moderately powerful Nvida card. If you have a poorly supported ATI card (or worse) and/or a slow old cpu- then it stands to reason your flash performance will suffer.
I've also noticed that Flash on widows is multi-threaded, whereas on Linux it is not. It uses only one core at a time on my box.
So, IMO, it's a problem caused by many factors. We all use the same flash player- but we use a lot of varying hardware. You can't 100% hands down blame Adobe when flash works more than satisfactory for many of us.
For the record- Flash stinks on Macs too. I just read this today- http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/02/17/adobe_exec_defends_flash_says_mac_improvements_are _coming.html
then I watched the video and realized I wasted my time reading it because they just dictate what is said in the video...
BM
edit- We should be happy that Adobe cares enough to even make a flash player for such a small market of computer users. I mean, what's in it for them? I feel like it's almost a charity handout that we have any flash player at all... Maybe with the growing Android market- they'll give use more attention.
rajeev1204
February 17th, 2010, 08:31 PM
This is a problem with Firefox and Flash,Why is it not in the poll.Mozilla themselves had admitted (cant find link now somewhere on toms or anandtech) even they were not sure whether its flash or code in linux Firefox itself was to blame.
I haave no problems with the windows version.Just like the title suggests.And chrome plays flaash significantly better than firefox, iam surprised i havent seen any comments blaming firefox ?? huh.
handy
February 17th, 2010, 08:34 PM
A major problem with forums, is that everybody talks, & nobody listens...
VertexPusher
February 17th, 2010, 08:40 PM
The article I linked to in post #44 (http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=8839772&postcount=44) explains in detail why Flash has troubles with HD video on slower Linux machines and why Windows performs better on the same hardware. And none of this is Adobe's fault.
If you think there's a lack of enthusiasm on Adobe's part, remember what happened when the Linux community demanded better sound support in Flash. Just when Adobe had successfully made the transition from OSS to ALSA, the community came along with yet another sound API (libpulse). Back to square one, rinse, repeat.
Now the same community is complaining again because there is a new video acceleration API in the making (which may or may not become stable and replace the previous one) and Adobe apparently did not jump at it right away. Of course they didn't, because they already got burned once.
As long as Linux does not provide the features that Flash needs in a stable API, there will be a performance gap between Linux and Windows. It's just that simple. And all the Flash bashing in this forum will do exactly nothing about it.
ElSlunko
February 17th, 2010, 10:23 PM
Mine is fine.
To blame is Adobe. However it is their product and up to their discretion as to how the source is handled. The REASON is adobe, whether or not it's justified is a matter of opinion.
ElSlunko
February 17th, 2010, 10:24 PM
A major problem with forums, is that everybody talks, & nobody listens...
Haha, so so true. I think I need to get some stupid avatar so I'll actually get listened to. Or act a certain way perhaps.
MCVenom
February 17th, 2010, 10:31 PM
You can play flash content in fullscreen, with sound and animations/video synced?
A youtube video in HD and in fullscreen?
A newgrounds (or any) flash game made with the latest version of Flash (Adobe Flash CS4) ?
I doubt it. But if you can then Linux has really come far since I last used it.
Everyone?
Uhh... seriously dude? I've been able to do ALL OF THAT since I started using Ubuntu (Jaunty)...
MCVenom
February 17th, 2010, 10:44 PM
Adobe, though I don't think flash only performs poorly and unreliably on Linux. I have it on my HTC Hero where it is laggy and slow, I've tried it on Windows and the result wasn't much better.
Fact check: Htc Hero doesn't run Flash, (and it never will, it ain't gettin' 2.1) it runs Flash Lite. Comparing the two is like comparing a rotting apple with a freshly ripe apple. You wanna see the power of Flash on mobile devices, wait until it comes out on Droid and Nexus One. :p
howlingmadhowie
February 18th, 2010, 01:13 PM
The article I linked to in post #44 (http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=8839772&postcount=44) explains in detail why Flash has troubles with HD video on slower Linux machines and why Windows performs better on the same hardware. And none of this is Adobe's fault.
If you think there's a lack of enthusiasm on Adobe's part, remember what happened when the Linux community demanded better sound support in Flash. Just when Adobe had successfully made the transition from OSS to ALSA, the community came along with yet another sound API (libpulse). Back to square one, rinse, repeat.
Now the same community is complaining again because there is a new video acceleration API in the making (which may or may not become stable and replace the previous one) and Adobe apparently did not jump at it right away. Of course they didn't, because they already got burned once.
As long as Linux does not provide the features that Flash needs in a stable API, there will be a performance gap between Linux and Windows. It's just that simple. And all the Flash bashing in this forum will do exactly nothing about it.
well it's adobe's fault for making a closed product and making it enormously difficult for developers to develop any competing product. i'm quite sure that if it were possible to create an open-source alternative for flash without having to worry about legal hoops these problems would no longer exist. it's not the community's fault that adobe doesn't understand how to work with the community to develop software.
VertexPusher
February 18th, 2010, 02:29 PM
well it's adobe's fault for making a closed product and making it enormously difficult for developers to develop any competing product.
The competing product is HTML5. I am still waiting for a link to the benchmark that you talked about in post #47 (http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=8839828&postcount=47).
i'm quite sure that if it were possible to create an open-source alternative for flash without having to worry about legal hoops these problems would no longer exist.
What legal hoops are you talking about?
You are overestimating the community's capability. Take a look at PulseAudio and tell me why it's still unstable. Take a look at display drivers: Although ATI has published GPU specifications a while ago, the open-source Radeon driver still sucks at 3D.
Adobe have clearly stated what they need to bring Flash on Linux up to a level with the Windows version. Now some people are pointing at a patch that makes Gnash use VA API, but the only working implementation of that comes from Intel and is closed source. In fact there is considerable doubt among the Gnash team whether using VA API is a good idea at all. But when it comes to bashing Adobe, these concerns do not seem to apply. Double standards?
Bottom line: The community has nothing to bring to the table that is open, standardized and stable enough for Adobe (or anyone else) to work with. And this is a Linux problem, not an Adobe problem.
Viva
February 18th, 2010, 03:45 PM
No problems with flash here
rajeev1204
February 18th, 2010, 04:21 PM
[QUOTE=VertexPusher;8845034]The competing product is HTML5. I am still waiting for a link to the benchmark that you talked about in post #47 (http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=8839828&postcount=47).
.......
swoll1980
February 18th, 2010, 04:30 PM
I don't think the problem is limited to Linux. When I'm logged into win7 I have similar problems with flash. I don't know if it's Chrome, or flash it's self, but when I full screen flash content my processor maxes out both it's cores, and a few times it's even hard locked the whole system. This is the only thing I have found to cause problems like this.
rajeev1204
February 18th, 2010, 04:51 PM
Add firefox to this poll, Firefox/Linux.
How can you people forget the application which you use to view flash is part of the problem?
Havent you noticed the super significant performance improvement inside Chrome???
The jerkiness problem iam talking about,which is my biggest problem with flash.Part API, part application problem i say.
gnomeuser
February 18th, 2010, 08:45 PM
Fact check: Htc Hero doesn't run Flash, (and it never will, it ain't gettin' 2.1) it runs Flash Lite. Comparing the two is like comparing a rotting apple with a freshly ripe apple. You wanna see the power of Flash on mobile devices, wait until it comes out on Droid and Nexus One. :p
Interesting, seeing as the material claims flash support I assumed it was "roughly the same"(tm). Regardless it's still crap, though to be honest I didn't really expect it to run smoothly. Mostly though I don't think flash is really an enhancement to the mobile browsing experience and I would rather they didn't include it.
purgatori
February 18th, 2010, 08:51 PM
Adobe. Who else?
Havent you noticed the super significant performance improvement inside Chrome???
No.
orky7
February 18th, 2010, 09:01 PM
i do not see any functionality problem in flash yes if you use firefox there are some problem but in chrome it is very smooth. and flash is resource hog in both windows and linux ,
Ric_NYC
February 18th, 2010, 09:04 PM
Adobe.
mcduck
February 18th, 2010, 10:29 PM
Adobe, of course, since Flash is closed-source software and only Adobe is able to do anyhting about it's performance.
I do acknowledge the point about Adobe not having to provide Flash for Linux at all, especially after the "no flash 8 for Linux"-thing Macromedia did before selling Flash to Adobe. But that doesn't change the fact that it's their program and they are responsible of the way it works unless they choose to allow others to help.
(and being also Apple user I know that Flash doesn't work that great on OSX either, switching a Flash video to full screen, for example, results in couple of seconds of white screen and frozen system before anyhting happens..)
LowSky
February 18th, 2010, 10:39 PM
Hmm I still can't watch hulu using the newest 64bit Flash plugin, unless I use the 32bit plugin or Hulu Desktop, which somehow works using the same plugin. And fullscreen stinks something terrible not matter what, And I don't have a cheap or old system.
And Adobe wonders why Flash is loosing ground to Silverlight? To be fair Moonlight barely works in Linux either. I'm a bit mad I can't watch the Olympics.
VertexPusher
February 19th, 2010, 09:12 AM
Adobe, of course, since Flash is closed-source software and only Adobe is able to do anyhting about it's performance.
Nonsense.
Take a look at this statement:
What do I have to do to make video playback in Swfdec as fast as with mplayer?
The short answer: It's hard. Here's the problem: As you might know, hardware has a dedicated method to display video, called the video overlay. That is what xv and in turn mplayer and ffmpeg use. It has the following features: * reserve a rectangular region on the screen for video display * move a memory rectangular image of YUV video data to that region and scale it to fit. That's not a lot and works well enough for video, but not for Flash. Flash allows rendering stuff on top of the video (the end screen on Youtube for example has the last video image shine through) and it allows translucent videos and drawing non-rectangular parts of videos. All of this is not supported by xv, which is why we decided to not go through the pain to use it. The unfortunate side effect is that currently a lot more horsepower is required to display a video via Swfdec.
The end goal is to use OpenGL and its video extensions to speed up Flash video. That should make it as fast as xv for graphic cards that provide these features (almost all current graphic cards do). But then, there is currently no OpenGL cairo backend, even though there's constantly talk about doing one.
This is from the swfdec wiki FAQ (http://swfdec.freedesktop.org/wiki/FAQ). Does it sound familiar (http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2010/01/solving_different_problems.html) to you? These guys have exactly the same problems making video playback smooth in the browser. Because it's currently impossible on Linux. The fact that swfdec is open source doesn't seem to help much.
It's time to take off the ideology-driven blinders and face the facts: Linux is just not ready for an application like Flash, no matter whether it's closed or open source. You can work around the problem by using more powerful hardware, but the fundamental problems remain.
By blaming Adobe for things beyond their control, you will achieve nothing. If you are lucky, Adobe will just ignore you and keep supporting Flash on Linux for those who appreciate it. But Adobe might as well just get p*ssed off by the community's attitude and show them the middle finger. Then the Flash plugin will become similar to Skype: bug-ridden, incomplete, three major versions behind the Windows version. Maybe that is your goal, but believe me: Linux adoption on the desktop will not benefit from it.
bobbob94
February 19th, 2010, 10:56 AM
Flash works fine for me, but I don't use it for much (bit of youtube, flash on websites where i've unblocked it)...
madnessjack
February 19th, 2010, 11:25 AM
Flash works horrible for me.
(Just thought I'd put it out there for folks, just incase anyone's slightly interested...)
blueturtl
February 19th, 2010, 12:59 PM
Nonsense.
Take a look at this statement:
This is from the swfdec wiki FAQ (http://swfdec.freedesktop.org/wiki/FAQ). Does it sound familiar (http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2010/01/solving_different_problems.html) to you? These guys have exactly the same problems making video playback smooth in the browser. Because it's currently impossible on Linux. The fact that swfdec is open source doesn't seem to help much.
It's time to take off the ideology-driven blinders and face the facts: Linux is just not ready for an application like Flash, no matter whether it's closed or open source. You can work around the problem by using more powerful hardware, but the fundamental problems remain.
By blaming Adobe for things beyond their control, you will achieve nothing. If you are lucky, Adobe will just ignore you and keep supporting Flash on Linux for those who appreciate it. But Adobe might as well just get p*ssed off by the community's attitude and show them the middle finger. Then the Flash plugin will become similar to Skype: bug-ridden, incomplete, three major versions behind the Windows version. Maybe that is your goal, but believe me: Linux adoption on the desktop will not benefit from it.
Few desktop Linux users run systems incapable of any form of graphics acceleration. What about the fact that MPlayer does support multiple output plug-ins including OpenGL at this very moment? Why does Adobe not do that?
That said there are also differences in the speed of algorithms used in programming. If you write software that does not use hardware acceleration features the speed of your program depends on how well you've crafted your algorithm. Are we just assuming that there is no extra speed Adobe could possibly squeeze out of their player?
7point62
February 20th, 2010, 12:22 AM
Nonsense.
Take a look at this statement:
This is from the swfdec wiki FAQ (http://swfdec.freedesktop.org/wiki/FAQ). Does it sound familiar (http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2010/01/solving_different_problems.html) to you? These guys have exactly the same problems making video playback smooth in the browser. Because it's currently impossible on Linux. The fact that swfdec is open source doesn't seem to help much.
It's time to take off the ideology-driven blinders and face the facts: Linux is just not ready for an application like Flash, no matter whether it's closed or open source. You can work around the problem by using more powerful hardware, but the fundamental problems remain.
By blaming Adobe for things beyond their control, you will achieve nothing. If you are lucky, Adobe will just ignore you and keep supporting Flash on Linux for those who appreciate it. But Adobe might as well just get p*ssed off by the community's attitude and show them the middle finger. Then the Flash plugin will become similar to Skype: bug-ridden, incomplete, three major versions behind the Windows version. Maybe that is your goal, but believe me: Linux adoption on the desktop will not benefit from it.
Speaking as a pragmatist I think this is pretty fair. Yeah, it's unfortunate that Flash has stumbled into being a web media standard, but there's nothing much that can be done can be done about that now. BTW Flash periodically blue-screens my Windows desktop so Linux users are by no means alone. :(
Anyways, greetings all, I found this post by way of a web search as I was looking for a way to improve the highish CPU usage of Flash in 9.04 (I'm an Linux newbie who is dipping a toe in the Ubuntu waters on a HP2133). But at least Flash works here.
Perhaps the only hope in the medium term is that legislators decide that Flash usage on the web is simply too universal to be administered by one company and force Adobe into opening up. A more efficient standard would be better though.
desnaike
February 20th, 2010, 01:50 AM
I had the same problems with flash but since 8.04 I have after installing all my plugins I copied them to each browsers plugin folder problems gone I use ff3.6,seamonky2,opera 10.10,epiphany,galeon,chrome Flash works and I tested at various flash sites. The reason I do this is because links don't always work. Learned that with windows.
mcduck
February 20th, 2010, 11:19 AM
Nonsense.
Take a look at this statement:
This is from the swfdec wiki FAQ (http://swfdec.freedesktop.org/wiki/FAQ). Does it sound familiar (http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2010/01/solving_different_problems.html) to you? These guys have exactly the same problems making video playback smooth in the browser. Because it's currently impossible on Linux. The fact that swfdec is open source doesn't seem to help much.
It's time to take off the ideology-driven blinders and face the facts: Linux is just not ready for an application like Flash, no matter whether it's closed or open source. You can work around the problem by using more powerful hardware, but the fundamental problems remain.
By blaming Adobe for things beyond their control, you will achieve nothing. If you are lucky, Adobe will just ignore you and keep supporting Flash on Linux for those who appreciate it. But Adobe might as well just get p*ssed off by the community's attitude and show them the middle finger. Then the Flash plugin will become similar to Skype: bug-ridden, incomplete, three major versions behind the Windows version. Maybe that is your goal, but believe me: Linux adoption on the desktop will not benefit from it.
You are tlaking about video only, I'm talking about Flash in general, which is used for lot more than just video players. :D
Besides, I was talking about Flash running crappily, not flash content (swfdec is swfdec, not Flash, even though both applications play (or try to play) the same content.
The Toxic Mite
February 20th, 2010, 11:39 AM
Flash works fine for me.
AlexDudko
February 20th, 2010, 01:19 PM
I use a Flashblock Firefox plugin and enable flash only if there's no other way to get some information, - a good increase in speed and stability.
itreius
February 20th, 2010, 02:52 PM
Linux and FSF
VertexPusher
February 21st, 2010, 03:16 AM
Few desktop Linux users run systems incapable of any form of graphics acceleration. What about the fact that MPlayer does support multiple output plug-ins including OpenGL at this very moment? Why does Adobe not do that?
They do, unless Compiz is enabled. Compiz is well known for conflicting with OpenGL applications. Not only Flash, but also Blender, Second Life and others. If you enable Compiz, performance in all those applications will suck.
http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2008/05/flash_uses_the_gpu.html
http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2008/08/secrets_of_the_mmscfg_file_1.html
Trefenwyd
March 12th, 2010, 06:54 AM
Flash works fine...except that it cannot doe 720p/1080p very well. I have a very powerful computer and it's deplorable with the way flash runs. In windows, it's flawless. In linux, it's terrible. It freezes, skips, and the cpu spikes exponentially.
Here's an example for you guys to try:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwk3Ps3Jayw <--try watching this in HD. If you can view it without stuttering, let me know how :)
oobuntoo
March 12th, 2010, 07:23 AM
I blame Linux/FOSS. If they want superior Flash, then they should provide a competition (and I really mean competion, not some lame ***** imitation like Gnash) to Flash to force Adobe to improve Flash on Linux. Why is Flash on Windows superior to those on other platforms? It's because Adobe feels it has to be to stay ahead of competition like Silverlight from MS. What competition to Flash is out there on Linux? I don't see any. Same for Mac. I would do exactly the same as Adobe does if I was in their shoes; they are in business to make money. If there is no competition to force them to spend resources to improve, then why should they. Frankly, I'm surprise that they even bother at all to provide Flash for Mac and Linux, given how small their market shares are.
Frak
March 12th, 2010, 07:38 AM
A little bit of Adobe's, a bit of every Desktop Linux ISV, and a bit of Linux and GNU themselves.
DrMilo
March 12th, 2010, 09:09 AM
Well I just tried Chrome on my Ubuntu box and if anything it's a little worse than Firefox.
I run Firefox on my Macbook and Flash plays far better on that, almost without a hitch.
I've tried Movie Player and VLC as applications that play Flash in Firefox on my Ubuntu box and no difference at all.
Mac is using a Linux kernel now and of course Flash is on both machines, as is Firefox, so not much different except for QT to play Flash videos on my MB.
Yet switching apps for playing Flash videos has no effect on my Ubuntu box, shouldn't it?
It seems too that playing Flash in Linux, as already said many times, just gobbles resources.
My video card is a 1G NVidia and I have 4G of RAM. Yet if Update Manager pops up, the video jams, as if running those 2 things takes up more resources than the box has; that's obviously wrong... really wrong!
An example of a tip to smooth things out is to increase the timing of the Session Restore, as when Firefox saves tabs, the resources used apparently can jam a video:
WTF? SAVING TABS? HOW CAN THAT USE UP BUGGER ALL?
But I tried it and the video performance has gone from horrible to bad, so it seems that it's a factor.
Oh and it doesn't matter either if I start the vid and walk away, so that it spools up, it either doesn't spool up fully, even if you leave it for hours or if it does, it jams anyway.
Which leads to another thing:
Why does the video jam when the playing bar clearly shows more video loaded than played? Oh sure it jams when the red hits the white but it's just as likely to jam long before that, lots of pink left, even, as I say, when the whole damn vid shows downloaded!
And why does it happen on every single video? It happens on videos less than a minute long, why should that be a problem? I have enough VRAM to hold about 1000 of those, let alone RAM.
So it would seem that the player is not only not working properly but lying to me as well. I mean, I wouldn't like it if I had to click on every video, wait for it to fully download, and only then play it, in order to actually enjoy it, but it would at least be logical and consistent. It is neither right now.
And one final inexplicable thing:
Why is YouTube, the most popular, and presumably most advanced site on Earth ever, one of the worst? Why do I get better performance out of bush league sites a million miles away, and typically the worst performance from the brand name site, with servers just an arms length of fiber-optic away from me?
In sum, it's not just the crappy performance, it's the seemingly complete lack of consistency or logic accompanying the problem that's got me, and I think most of us. God knows I'm used to workarounds but they only work when there's something to go around.
Johnsie
March 12th, 2010, 09:46 AM
The Quality Assurance team at Cannonical and Adobe, however I'm more bothered by ugly guis in applications. Flash doesn't work perfectly for me ut it's usable enough that I can make do.
In general Ubuntu seems to be struggling to provide a good looking, polished product that is comparable to Windows 7 or OSX.
Andreas1
March 12th, 2010, 09:58 AM
the fact that it's proprietary:
-adobe has no interest to make it work because there are not many linux users
-the community has no chance to make it work because it's proprietary
EDIT: that said, it does work for me, but eats up my dual core processor for a tiny video, which is ridiculous
ElSlunko
March 12th, 2010, 10:13 AM
Here's an example for you guys to try:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwk3Ps3Jayw <--try watching this in HD. If you can view it without stuttering, let me know how :)
Ran at full FPS for me with no stuttering once I let the download finish. Running intel i7 920 & a GTX 260 + 12gbs of ram.
madnessjack
March 12th, 2010, 10:30 AM
Ran at full FPS for me with no stuttering once I let the download finish. Running intel i7 920 & a GTX 260 + 12gbs of ram.
Funny, I can run the same thing on an old P4 2.6GHz with a GB of RAM (using Windows, mind :P).
Trefenwyd
March 12th, 2010, 10:32 AM
Ran at full FPS for me with no stuttering once I let the download finish. Running intel i7 920 & a GTX 260 + 12gbs of ram.
Darn. Are you by chance running 64 bit? I have to run 32 bit because cisco's vpn client is a pain to get working in 64.
ElSlunko
March 12th, 2010, 11:22 AM
Darn. Are you by chance running 64 bit? I have to run 32 bit because cisco's vpn client is a pain to get working in 64.
Yeah 64bit, forgot to mention that part. Using sevenmachine's ppa but I think it might be identical to the one offered in 10.04.
3rdalbum
March 12th, 2010, 12:01 PM
Adobe should be terribly embarrassed. Gnash supports VDPAU, but Adobe Flash Player doesn't. The guy behind Flash Player for Linux started complaining that "there are too many video acceleration APIs for Linux!" - well, all he needs to do is target the only one that:
a. Has a major effect on lowering CPU utilisation
b. Has a major install-base.
Which is VDPAU.
ATI's video acceleration thing is not usable on Linux yet, and there are precious few Broadcom CrystalHD chips out there.
So, it's Adobe's fault, for not replacing the guy who makes the Linux version.
DrMilo
April 3rd, 2010, 03:22 AM
Well knowing who to blame is always tricky but it looks like the Firefox update today fixed the major problems.
jflaker
April 3rd, 2010, 03:36 AM
The SUB-STANDARD functionality of Linux, whether it is hardware or closed source software, is solely the fault of the hardware manufacturers and the software makers....
If the level of drivers and software like flash, was the same as it is for Windows, Linux would rock! But the only thing people see when trying this OS is that it is sub-par in many areas....so they run back to windows.
Linux is fine, it has ALWAYS been fine. OK, there were a few bumps in the road along the way, but there was also Windows Vista, if you know what I mean.
Now, one could speculate that Microsoft is making it worth their (the software and hardware makers) to keep Linux down by essentially constributing to the "suck" factor by keeping drivers and software to a bare minimum....you may not be far off....proving it is another story.
The linux community needs to come together and be counted....ONLY by being counted, will the software/hardware makers realize the numbers and that those numbers = lost profits. Microsoft knows how many OS units were sold and how many were installed because on installation, registration is mandatory....
Frak
April 3rd, 2010, 05:09 AM
I just hopped over 3 Linux distributions and FreeBSD. Arch, OpenSUSE, Fedora, and FreeBSD (using linux-f10-flashplugin10) have had no problems with Flash 10 on my machine. When I use Ubuntu, I get odd sticking buttons, slow performance, high CPU cycles, and choppy video.
Go figure.
soldier1st
July 11th, 2010, 03:07 AM
Adobe.
beetleman64
July 19th, 2010, 10:15 PM
Considering that Flash is proprietary, and as such is developed by Adobe only, the blame must lie at their door. Yes, the fragmentation in Linux (both technologically and in opinions on proprietary software) doesn't help, but Adobe is more than big enough to get round that and make a player which works properly.
Maybe the next version of Flash should be called: Flash 11 - my god it works!
nerdopolis
July 19th, 2010, 11:11 PM
I remember reading on Phoronix about the Adobe guy that ports Flash to Linux (I wouldn't be surprised if he was the only one doing it) ranting how implanting something (I think it was hardware acceleration) was impossible to implant in Flash for Linux.
Then I heard that the Gnash project went along and implanted it.
So yeah... I'm thinking its Adobe...
oldsoundguy
July 19th, 2010, 11:19 PM
Flash is a BROWSER add on .. nothing to do with Linux in reality. And EVERYTHING to do with browser compatibilities.
Flash is a POS crap shoot in FF running on Windows, also. (and it sometimes does not run in IE either!)
and do NOT count on any real effort from Adobe to correct issues .. not with HTML5 standing in the wings and poised to take things over!
TheStroj
July 19th, 2010, 11:28 PM
Well Flash works perfectly for me on Chrome. I can play flash games, watch HD videos on Youtube, even fullscreen works for me. I rarely see flash to crash, happened only 2x in this year which is kinda normal.
That means I don't blame anyone :P
nothingspecial
July 19th, 2010, 11:38 PM
I block flash.
madnessjack
July 20th, 2010, 02:17 PM
Flash running badly in linux is not a fault
jerenept
July 20th, 2010, 04:25 PM
Flash running badly in linux is not a fault
It's our fault for being less than 2% of the market.
pricetech
July 20th, 2010, 06:58 PM
Adobe, plain and simple.
RiceMonster
July 20th, 2010, 07:01 PM
Me. Sorry about that.
lykwydchykyn
July 20th, 2010, 10:55 PM
Me. Sorry about that.
I KNEW IT!
:evil::evil:
You will pay...
prodigy_
July 21st, 2010, 12:28 AM
Of course it's Adobe. By the way, the poll is outdated now. Regarding 64-bit Linux, it's not awful functionality anymore, it's almost nonexistent.
It's our fault for being less than 2% of the market.
Yes, it's our fault that one ill-known corporation monopolized the market before the first version of Linux was even released. It's also our fault that the same corporation now uses any possible leverage to maintain its monopoly, no matter how illegal.
dmizer
July 21st, 2010, 12:44 AM
Of course it's Adobe. By the way, the poll is outdated now.
Old poll, old thread. Flashbacks work in literature and movies, not in forum threads!
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