So the other day I was installing Flash player for Ubuntu 7.10 using the Add/Remove. Then when you reload a page with flash elements, it would show you that there isn’t any flash player installed. I tried installing it again and again, using Add/remove and the Synaptic Package Manager which didn’t work as well.

What I did then was to install manually by downloading the tar.gz file from Adobe’s site and installing it my self through the terminal.

Here’s the steps:

1) Unzip/extract the tar.gz file (you can do this through the terminal or through GUI)

2) Open the terminal and access the folder, by default its name would be “install_flash_player_9_linux”

3) Type “./flashplayer-installer” to run the installation file, this will install the flash player for your current user profile. I personally use “sudo ./flashplayer-installer” to install it for all user.

4) You will then get the following text display

Copyright(C) 2002-2006 Adobe Macromedia Software LLC. All rights reserved.

Adobe Flash Player 9 for Linux

Adobe Flash Player 9 will be installed on this machine.

You are running the Adobe Flash Player installer as a non-root user.
Adobe Flash Player 9 will be installed in your home directory.

Support is available at http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer…

To install Adobe Flash Player 9 now, press ENTER.

To cancel the installation at any time, press Control-C.

NOTE: Please exit any browsers you may have running.

Press ENTER to continue.

5) If you choose to install without “sudo” things would be a lot easier as you will be brought to this screen and all you have to do is type “y”

Adobe Flash Player 9 will be installed in the following directory:

Mozilla installation directory = /home/gnomeboy/.mozilla

Proceed with the installation? (y/n/q):

6) If you use “sudo” this will be the following text that will be display. All you have to do is to locate the firefox folder manually.

Copyright(C) 2002-2006 Adobe Macromedia Software LLC. All rights reserved.

Adobe Flash Player 9 for Linux

Adobe Flash Player 9 will be installed on this machine.

You are running the Adobe Flash Player installer as the “root” user.
Adobe Flash Player 9 will be installed system-wide.

Support is available at http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer…

To install Adobe Flash Player 9 now, press ENTER.

To cancel the installation at any time, press Control-C.

NOTE: Please exit any browsers you may have running.

Press ENTER to continue…

Please enter the installation path of the Mozilla, Netscape,
or Opera browser (i.e., /usr/lib/mozilla):

by default, my firefox is install in “/usr/lib/firefox” sometimes you might see 2 other folder in the /lib directory, those folders are “mozilla-firefox” and “mozilla” in this case just install the plugin in “firefox” and “mozilla” or alternatively you could try all but there would definately be one folder which doesn’t allow you to install. After you install the plugin in the firefox folder there will be another line asking you if you like to have another installation, just say “y” and install in the other folder.

Do not worry if you can install in “mozilla” or “mozilla-firefox” because it’s normal. So far it would normally install in at least 2 folders if there is 3, or in 1 folder if there’s on 2. I’m not too sure of the reason why, but it works.

This bug has also been reported at ubuntu forums and would be patched soon I guess, since they already made the change/fix to Ubuntu 8.04. According to them :

Adobe updated the flash plugin. Due to their license, we must download and install their file. This breaks the Gutsy package. We have TWO choices:

1) Don’t update the package and have a broken package that no-one can use (aside from the more technically minded)

2) Update the package and have a package that everyone can use, except for konqueror users.

It seems that because we have no control over Adobe, the ball is in konqueror’s court and they need to patch. (If their users plan on using flash)

A third solution, if possible, would be to see if Adobe keeps older versions of flash available for download and update the package to pull that.