Removal of hal breaks amazon's drm for flash video
 

Just a head's up, that if hal is not installed AND running then any DRM'd video from Amazon will not work. This means --current users and future slack. Don't shoot the messenger :) edit (add): which by the way I understand, and appreciate why hal is removed from Slackware. I'm just posting this in case someone is not aware of this.

Adobe's page about the requirements for playing protected content.
http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/m...s-playing.html

Thanks both, I didn't know about this -- am using Debian so the instructions on Adobe's site worked perfectly.
Edit: though sadly because of corporate greed it's unlikely I'll be able to actually make use of it.

Is there any way around this? I would be very disappointed to lose the ability to watch the Amazon videos. Can hal still function on slackware-current if it is rebuilt and reinstalled on our own?

Brian

HAL removed?
 

Hey Slackers, say isn't so!
I use Amazon Prime video streaming a lot.

After reading the link to the Gentoo discussion, and also struggling with the flash-plugin on AMD64, it's not going to happen.
Being so grateful to have streaming video on Linux, I'll forego my Slackware adventures for now.
Peace to all, and good luck.

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t...04bc76d5476b42
Similar discussion from the Gentoo forum.

I suppose I am not being constructive, but when these kind of things happen, I stop/avoid using the services of the "Linux unfriendly" corporation.

Most of the times, they need customers more than customers need their services, so let them burn themselves if they don't fix it.

I used to say the same thing about Youtube, until they started implementing HTML5 video so many clips can be seen without flash at all.

@disturbed1 : thanks for the link

@Eyo: Why would you stop using Slackware for this? Unless I'm reading understanding you incorrectly.

@Old_Fogie: Just can't upgrade to -current. It's the "Being so grateful to have streaming video on Linux" part.

I have a local phone company and ISP. DSL here is slow, on the edge of the service area.
So tired of being abused by monopolies, I don't use cable or satellite TV. No cellular either.
And no proprietary OS. Flash is the only tech that streams okay without issue. For now.

@BlackRider: I subscribe to amazon because they were the first Linux-friendly streaming service <shrug>. I'm not pure.

This seems a little different. It is not the vendor who has changed something to make it no longer work on Slackware but Slackware which has removed the package which allowed it to function. I don't know what the technical issues are, I just hope there will be a way to build and install what is necessary to make this work.

Brian

sorry, I don't use it so I can't test it, but have you tried to install the hal package from the 13.37 repository and see if it just works?

Hal is dead, period.

Let me quote the warning on a pink background on its home page:
And last release date back 30-Nov-2009.

So, though some media providers didn't notice that already, not keeping it in an new Slackware release seems me a sensible decision.

P.S. Though being happy with that decision, I have no objection to somebody proposing a slackbuild for it as long as someone requests it ;)

If you're looking to place blame I think the only logical choice is Adobe, which has abandoned Flash on Linux and will therefore certainly not be updating it to get rid of the HAL dependency. Amazon has two choices -- Flash with DRM or Silverlight with DRM, one of which worked before and will work only with hacks now and one which won't work at all. HAL does not belong in a default Slackware installation any longer and if you do need it for this I think it is better added manually...

HAL is in it's last final stage basically, but it's not dead. It's not being developed, but several projects still utilize it where udev, and such have yet to effectively replace it.

As far as HAL's fate, even if some projects still utilize it, it could be moved into the /extra, or assigned to SlackBuilds for releases to lighten the load.

This is why some of us said before we transition out of HAL we should make sure NOTHING still utilizes it.

Truth be told HAL should have been merged into udev, udisks, upower, etc. rather than just abandoned. However, this goes along with the recklessness of what is being pushed on Linux users with systemd.

@ReaperX7: /pasture would be a better place than /extra then ;)

And if I follow your rationale, all software should stay forever in Slackware, as there is no way to make sure that no{thing,body} utilizes it any more.

If *you* need it just stay on 13.37 or try to re-use the Slackbuild it includes for hal, till somebody (may be you?) proposes one for 14.