I have just installed mandriva 2006 on mylaptop, and after many hours finaly managed to get the wireless up and running. Feels great!! Then I go on to something that i believe should be simple I hit a brick wall !! So if anyone out there has got a total idiots guide to how to install flashplayer 7 then could you please help? I followed all the instructions for an install but it did not work. there are instructions on how to put the files manually into the mozilla plugins folder but they wizzed right over my head as i don't understand any of the commands I am meant to be writing, so please help as everyone seems to say linux is so great and i've yet to find out.

What you need to do is first of all discover where the Firefox plugin folder is - mine is /usr/lib/firefox/plugins

Open a terminal and type in Make sure you are in the folder created when you expanded the compressed flashplayer installer file. My folder is /tmp/download/install_flash_player_7_linux. Type in (or wherever your plugins folder is). cp is the "copy" command and we are telling the system to copy the file to the folder. Repeat for the second file.

Open Firefox and, in the address bar, type in "about:plugins" (without the quotes) and hit enter. Read through the list of plugins until you have verified Flash is installed. Then go to a Flash enabled site to confirm it works.

Welcome to LQ

yours are probably in /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox-1.0.6/plugins

you can use the graphical kde approach just click on home and navigate as usual to find directories and files and copy or move them as usual

tried all that and there seems to be no joy!! Is there another browser that works that I could try

For me, Flash player was a breeze to install, but I did it a little different:

Start by downloading the latest version of firefox from www.getfirefox.com
Save it to your home directory.
Open a console and do this:

su
(type in password)
cp -R firefox /usr/lib/

these commands will copy the firefox directory to the /usr/lib/ folder. Now simply right click on the firefox icon in your menu and change the working path from the 1.0.6 path to the new 1.5.01 path. On mine, when I go to a page that requires flash, it downloads it and installs it automatically. Yours should do the same. HOpe this helps.

I apologize for jumping in here, but I am learning on my first linux distro (mandriva)and this topic seems to fit my question.
I downloaded firefox 1.5 to /home/documents then
tar -xzvf firefox.....

so now I should move that to /usr/lib as root?

is this were all new apps should be placed?

Thanks for any advice.

dases: Actually, 90% (or more) of any new apps you install should come via your Mandriva Control Center/rpmdrake or the commandline urpmi. If you have not yet visited Easy Urpmi and set up your repository sources, then I urge you to do so. Everything you install from the mcc/urpmi will be put in the *correct* place.

As a general rule, I advise people to use their distro's package management system. this saves many headaches installing new software, as things like dependencies, and "where do I put it?", are automatically taken care of for you. Just googling and grabbing "wild" rpms and source tarballs is just asking for frustration.

mozilla is one of the exceptions. Their installation system generally works quite well. Copying the entire firefox directory to /usr/lib is one way of making it available to all users. Generally, I put non-standard software in "/usr/local". But of course, I have to make sure user $PATH variables are set correctly, and that permissions are correct in /usr/local. Still, that is where rpmdrake/urpmi will put non-standard software, so it generally works pretty well.

When you go to the plugins [age on Firefox, as in my post, what do you see?

Installing the flashplayer is a f****** pain in the a**. Pardon my French. Why do they make it so difficult. Do they think it's funny?
I don't. I followed all these directions and more and still no Flash. Arrrgggg!!!!!

I apologize for the above outburst/rant but the darn thing won't work no matter what I do.

Here's the path:

/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox-1.0.6/plugins

Here's the contents:

file:///usr/lib/mozilla-firefox-1.0.6/plugins/flashplayer.xpt
file:///usr/lib/mozilla-firefox-1.0.6/plugins/libflashplayer.so
file:///usr/lib/mozilla-firefox-1.0.6/plugins/libnullplugin.so


Here's the mozilla path:

/usr/lib/mozilla

Here's the contents:

file:///usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/flashplayer.xpt
file:///usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so

But nothing works. I followed all the directions, I used the installer, I search the internet far and wide. I posted my problems, I asked a thousand people, I did everything I could think of, I researched this far and wide yet I still cannot unravel the mystery of getting the flash plugin to work.

ok.. try like this:

- reinstall firefox. as in, delete plugins, uninstall firefox, if it makes you feel better, then reboot, install firefox.

- untar the flash tar in home/you/download

- hit console, log in as root, start konqueror (by just typing "konqueror" (no quotes) in console)

- konqueror opens and go with it to where the plugins are. that's /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox-1.0.6/plugins/ and NOT /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ because you want to put it with firefox specifficlly

- copy libflashplayer.so and flashplayer.xpt from your /home/you/download/firefox folder to firefox plugins folder that's opened from before

- start firefox

- in navigation toolbar type "about:plugins", flash should be there

- just in case, go to some website you know it uses flash banners (myspace account in my case). if banners work, you're safe.



i've said nothing that hasn't been already mentioned here. i just gave you step by step that helped me to learn more about usr/lib and usr/bin folders :D

ps - sorry for my english. hope got the point.