LinuxQuestions.org - Discussion fo r AMD64 Gnash (Free Flash) Users

The "gnash" flashplayer is now available in Debian Sid for the AMD64 (apt-cache search gnash). It's a little flaky, but a major improvement over no Flashplayer at all. Since Flash, for better or worse, is an integral part of web-browsing these days, I thought I'd open a thread to share issues.

(Gnash is also available for 32-bit, but that's not usually an issue since the proprietary player works fine there. I would have put this thread in Software or some other forum, but as far as I know, it isn't available in any other distro. If that proves to be incorrect, I'll ask for the thread to be moved.)

A few things I've noticed:

1. Gnash seems to be identifying itself to sites employing Flash files as Flash8. Don't know if that affects playability on Flash8 videos or not.

2. Intermittently, starting a flash movie in Firefox will grab 100% of system resources and make the system virtually unsuable. After a while, my installation will kill the process and free up the memory. Sometimes, when I hear the disk start spinning, I realize what's happening in time to kill the window myself before it immobilizes the system. Reloading the page, usually works fine.

3. This one may be related to #2. Used .swf files tend to accumulate in /tmp. Check periodically, and rm "/tmp/*.swf"

4. I haven't been able to get sound working via the plugin. Not sure if it's a gnash problem or a sound config problem on my PC. Downloading the file and using the player from the command line works with the -r3 option. (Note: "man gnash" has incorrect arguments for the -r option; "gnash --help" has it right.

That's all that comes to mind at the moment, but tips and suggestions would be welcome. As I said at the top, there are problems, but it's a big improvement over no Flash at all.