This is a known bug with the flashplugin-installer package and is currently being worked on by Canonical. In the meantime, if you wish to fix the problem yourself now rather than wait for the official fix, just follow these instructions…

1. After you have installed Flash in the usual manner, open a terminal and type in the following:

   $ sudo gedit /usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/i386/linux/npviewer

2. Once the GEdit text editor (or substitute your favourite) opens, insert the following line just before the last line (should appear in most installations as the fourth line out of a total of five lines):

   export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1

3. Save your changes and exit your text editor.
   .
4. Now restart any applications that use Flash, such as Firefox.
   .
5. In the case of Firefox, go and visit a page that uses Flash. You should now find that you can now click in Flash without a problem.
   .
6. Pat yourself on the back. You’re done.

Normally I wouldn’t endorse an Alpha to anyone but cutting-edge users, but I have to make an exception here. I’m going to keep using it until I come across a major show-stopper such as Firefox lockups or what-not.

If you’d like to try out the 64-bit plugin for yourself, here’s what you have to do.

First up, you need to be running Ubuntu 64-bit (duh), or any other 64-bit distro, but I’ll concentrate on Ubuntu here. This applies equally to Intrepid and Hardy installations, and should work for earlier ones too.

If you have the 32-bit wrapper and plugin installed, they need to be removed first. You can do that by jumping into a terminal and type:

$ sudo apt-get remove flashplugin-nonfree nspluginwrapper

Once that has finished, trot on over to Adobe’s Flash Player 10 site and download the 64-bit library (it’s not a proper .deb installer yet, just an archive). The link is at the bottom of the page. If you can’t see it, then click here for a direct link to the download.

Once it’s downloaded, extract the archive out. It contains only one file.

$ tar -xvf libflashplayer-10.0.d20.7.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz
libflashplayer.so
$

…and now move it to the Mozilla plugins directory for Firefox to pick up:

$ sudo mv libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/

That’s it! Now quit and restart Firefox. Go to about:plugins to verify that Firefox has indeed added the Flash Player 10 plugin, and then go and visit any website containing Flash content.

Enjoy!

Like

Unlike