Introduction

Opera is a browser developed by the company "Opera Software ASA"/Oslo. It is non-free software, since only binaries are made available (License).

Up to version 12, Opera made their own engine for Opera, called Presto. But in 2013, they decided to re-create the browser from scratch, built on Chromium with the Blink engine. The first edition with the Blink engine was version 15, and the older, Presto based browser, was discontinued (version 13 and 14 was skipped). But as the new browser was built from scratch, it lost many features. Therefore, there are still many users that want to use Opera 12. As it differs very much, there's a second wiki page for that version. You can access it here: OperaBrowser12.

Installation

The best and easiest way to install Opera is by just downloading the deb-package from Opera's website. When you install the package, it will add their repository, automatically configured for updates.

Once you have downloaded the file, you can install it by double clicking on the file to open Ubuntu software center. If you don't want to add the repository, you can install the package by opening a terminal in the directory where you have downloaded Opera, and run this command: 

sudo dpkg -i <opera-package-name>

When you do this, you will be asked if you want to add their repository or not.

You can read more about this here: http://deb.opera.com/manual.html

Portable version

You can convert the deb package with this script: https://gist.github.com/ruario/8416e36372f1a976a713

Plugins

Flash

Method 1 (preferred)

Install the package adobe-flashplugin:

(Open a terminal with the keyboard shortcut ctrl + alt + T) 

sudo apt install adobe-flashplugin

If apt cannot find the package, you have to enable the "Canonical Partners" repository:

  1. Open "Software & Updates" (you can search for it in the dash).

  2. Go to the tab "Other Software".
  3. Search in the list for "Canonical Partners".
  4. Tick the box to the left. (Enter your password if prompted)
  5. Click the "Close" button
  6. Click "Reload" in the pop-up

After the last step is finished, you can install the package. Remember to restart Opera afterwards.

Method 2

Install the package pepperflashplugin-nonfree: 

sudo apt install pepperflashplugin-nonfree

Then restart Opera. If it's not working, you may also have to run: 

sudo update-pepperflashplugin-nonfree --install

Java

Java is not supported, as they only provide an NPAPI plugin (which are not supported on both Opera and Chrome on Linux).

Get H.264 video working

If you are having trouble with videos on the web that are not flash, it is probably a video that uses the H.264 codec.

Right now Opera doesn't have support for H.264 by default. You can install it by running this command, and then restart Opera: 

sudo apt install chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra

Note! Unfortunately, Opera has some issues with using the library sometimes, because it's so tightly integrated with chromium. You can read about this here: https://forums.opera.com/topic/11147/opera-31-youtube-i-want-to-watch-all-videos-in-html5/16

External Links

OperaBrowser (last edited 2017-12-30 21:43:00 by c83-250-237-52)