Introduction

Flash packages are installed using the package manager. There are many options to select from:

• Adobe Flash (Closed source and proprietary)
• Gnash
• Swfdec

And many others. Often users install multiple flash plugins and this causes an issue. The browser attempts to load ALL the plugins, they collide and a conflict arises. The browser is now unsure of which plugin to use and you get no flash content.

The Fix

If you run:

dpkg -l | egrep "flash|gnash|swf"

You will see the installed flash plugins and can remove them to get to a situation of NO flash plugins, to then install ONE to give the browser a single choice. Common outputs are:

* flashplugin-installer * flashplugin-nonfree * flashplugin-nonfree-extrasound * swfdec-gnome * swfdec-mozilla * mozilla-plugin-gnash * gnash * gnash-common * flasplugin64-installer * lightspark

If you see any of the above in the output, remove them using Software Center and rerun the check to ensure they are all gone. If you now run:

uname -m

and you see "x86_64" you can get 64bit Adobe flash by using the Adobe Flash PPA and install the flashplugin64-installer package. You can do this by copying and pasting the following into a terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sevenmachines/flash && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install flashplugin64-installer

Otherwise you can use:

sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree

And install the 32bit flash plugin. If you are using PPC CPU then you will NEED to use one of the laternatives listed earlier.

NB. Lightspark is not in the Official Ubuntu repositories. It can be installed via this link: OMGUbuntu Lightspark Page