This page contains information on Flash, a proprietary format for delivering audio and video content, primarily over the Internet.
Flash is non-free/proprietary software
Adobe's Flash plugin cannot be included in Fedora because it is not free/libre and open source software. Adobe does release a version of the Flash plugin for Linux, and this can be used in Firefox, Konqueror and other popular Internet browsers. When Adobe releases a newer version of the Linux Flash plugin, it makes packages available for Fedora, but Fedora cannot include Adobe's plugin as long as it is unavailable as free and open source software.
There is a free and open source alternative called Gnash available in Fedora's software repositories. Gnash can play flash videos but the audio portion of flash is often under the MP3 format which is patent encumbered. Since Gnash uses Gstreamer, you can get additional codecs from other third party repositories but Fedora unfortunately cannot include them. There is also another free and open source alternative called Lightspark. Scroll below for more details on installing Gnash. There are other open alternatives to Flash itself, including the patent unencumbered and free WebM, Ogg Theora video and Ogg Vorbis audio formats. Fedora has complete support for such open formats, and Fedora includes a version of Firefox web browser that plays Ogg and WebM (Firefox 15 onwards) files directly, without any need of third party and proprietary browser plugins.
YouTube and WebM support
Google has open sourced the VP8 video format and combined it with Ogg Vorbis audio and an adaptation of the Matroska container, creating a new format for free and open video and audio called WebM. YouTube is switching over to using WebM extensively and Fedora has embraced this format as well. Current versions of Fedora support WebM by default.
To enable support for it in YouTube, go to http://youtube.com/html5 and click on "Join the HTML5 Beta" link in the bottom of that page. Note that all videos are not available in WebM format yet, but this is expected to happen over time. Here is a sample video for testing.
Enabling Flash plugin
Adobe offers several methods to install their 32-/64-bit Flash 11 plugins. In general, the YUM version is preferred, since it allows the plugin to be updated automatically through Fedora's normal update mechanism. The YUM version simply installs the repository configuration files, after which you must install the Flash plugin separately.
To begin, refer to the Adobe site at http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/. Select YUM for Linux to download, and confirm.
This will download the adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm file. Installation of the repository file adobe-linux-i386.repo to /etc/yum.repos.d/ can be performed by installing the .rpm file. Issue the following command within the directory where you have downloaded the repository rpm file.
su -c 'rpm -ivh adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm'
The .rpm file also copies the adobe General Public Key (GPG key) to /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-adobe-linux but does not import it. To import the key, type:
su -c 'rpm --import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-adobe-linux'
The system is now ready to fetch rpm packages from adobe using yum. To verify this, take a look at the /etc/yum.repos.d/adobe-linux-i386.repo file that was just created. You should see something similar to the following:
[adobe-linux-i386] name=Adobe Systems Incorporated baseurl=http://linuxdownload.adobe.com/linux/i386/ enabled=1 gpgcheck=1 gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-adobe-linux
Notice that the file contains the URL where the packages are located, whether or not the repository should be enabled, whether rpm should check downloaded packages from adobe against the GPG key, and the location of the key itself.
If getting the tar.gz version of either the 32-bit or 64-bit plugin, unpack it and copy it to /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins or /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins. Make sure that its ownership is root:root and that permissions are set to -rwxr-xr-x. Also, as root, run either restorecon -v '/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so' or restorecon -v '/usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so', depending on whether you are using the 32- or 64-bit version. The 64-bit alpha is currently only available in a .tar.gz version.
Now proceed to either the instructions for 32-bit (i386) platforms or 64-bit (x86_64) platforms.
On 32-bit Fedora
After completing the Adobe repository configuration, run the following command to install the Flash plugin and ensure sound is enabled:
su -c 'yum install nspluginwrapper alsa-plugins-pulseaudio flash-plugin'
You may see messages indicating that some of these packages are already installed. This is not a problem. (In particular, a default graphical install of 32-bit Fedora already includes both nspluginwrapper and alsa-plugins-pulseaudio.)
To 'wrap' the plugin, run the following command:
su -c 'mozilla-plugin-config -i /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/*.so'
In /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins-wrapped, you should see a wrapped version of the flash plugin.
Next, you should check the plugin.
On 64-bit Fedora
Since Flash version 11, 64 bit architecture is supported natively.
After completing the Adobe repository configuration, run the following command to install the Flash plugin and ensure sound is enabled:
su -c 'yum install flash-plugin'
Next, you should check the plugin.
Checking the plugin
After the installation, exit all copies of Firefox and start it again to enable the plugin. Then type the following text in the Firefox address bar:
about:plugins
A section similar to the following should appear:
This information tells you that the Adobe Flash plugin has been successfully installed.
Also check the Adobe Flash Player test page
Installing the plugin on Chrome
Follow all of the instructions above. Then:
- create a Chrome plugin folder:
su -c 'mkdir /opt/google/chrome/plugins'
- on 32-bit, create a symbolic link that tells Chrome how to find the 32-bit plugin:
su -c 'ln -s /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so /opt/google/chrome/plugins/libflashplayer.so'
- on 64-bit, create a symbolic link that tells Chrome how to find the 64-bit plugin:
- run Mozilla Firefox once so that it creates /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins-wrapped/nswrapper_32_64.libflashplayer.so
su -c 'ln -s /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins-wrapped/nswrapper_32_64.libflashplayer.so /opt/google/chrome/plugins/nswrapper_32_64.libflashplayer.so'
- Exit all Chrome windows and restart Chrome.
- In the Chrome address bar, type "about:plugins" to check whether the plugin loaded. You may have to re-run Chrome with the --enable-plugins command line switch to force Chrome to re-scan its plugins folder.
Installing the plugin on Chromium
Follow all of the instructions in the Enabling Flash Plugin section. Then:
- on 32-bit, create a symbolic link that tells Chromium how to find the 32-bit plugin:
su -c 'ln -s /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/chromium-browser/plugins/libflashplayer.so'
- on 64-bit, create a symbolic link that tells Chromium how to find the 64-bit plugin:
- run Mozilla Firefox once so that it creates /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins-wrapped/nswrapper_32_64.libflashplayer.so
su -c 'ln -s /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins-wrapped/nswrapper_32_64.libflashplayer.so /usr/lib64/chromium-browser/plugins/nswrapper_32_64.libflashplayer.so'
- Exit all Chromium windows and restart Chromium.
- In the Chromium address bar, type "about:plugins" to check whether the plugin loaded. You may have to re-run Chromium with the --enable-plugins command line switch to force Chromium to re-scan its plugins folder.
Troubleshooting and notes
SELinux problems
In some cases, nspluginwrapper produces SELinux AVC errors, some of which may prevent viewing Flash content. Changing the relevant SELinux boolean may resolve this problem, but eliminates a great deal of additional security when using nspluginwrapper. To make the change, run the following command:
su -c 'setsebool -P allow_unconfined_nsplugin_transition=0'
Sound distorted in Fedora 14
A recent change to glibc in Fedora 14 has exposed a bug in the 64 bit Flash plugin that causes sound distortion on some videos. Discussion of what to do about it is ongoing as of 2010-11-17. For details and workarounds, see bug 638477.
After Fedora upgrade/preupgrade
To regenerate wrapper previously generated by nspluginwrapper you need to remove the old one:
su -c 'rm /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins-wrapped/nswrapper_32_64.libflashplayer.so'
Please, restart your browser after this.
Installing Gnash
Fedora includes a free and open source Flash player called Gnash. Gnash is very modular and includes plugins for Mozilla and Konqueror as well as a desktop player. You likely want the Mozilla plugin.
Use PackageKit or run the following as root user
yum remove nspluginwrapper yum install gnash-plugin
If you use Konqueror as your web browser,
yum install gnash-klash
If you would like to have a desktop flash player,
yum install gnash
Note that Flash often relies on MP3 for audio and Fedora cannot include support for it since it is a patent encumbered format. Gnash uses the Gstreamer multimedia framework and hence additional multimedia codecs can be installed separately. Third party repositories might provide such codecs.