Installing flash 9 debugger in linux

Question

I've been trying for some time to use the ExternalInterface.call method in flash, to no avail (see here: actionscript + javascript here: Using ExternalInterface in Flash and here: Flash trace output in firefox, linux) and now I'm trying to trace ExternalInterface.available. So far my best option seems to be FlashTracer for firefox, except that I have to have flash player 9 installed. I've removed my old flash player and downloaded the appropriate files (http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flashplayer/updaters/9/flash_player_9_linux_dev.tar.gz). According to the readme included these are the steps for installation:

Installing the debugger plugin tar.gz using Install script:
o the debugger plugin is located at:
./plugin/debugger/install_flash_player_9_linux.tar.gz
o Unpack the tar.gz file
o In terminal, navigate to the unpacked directory and enter:
+ $ ./flashplayer-installer
+ Click Enter key and follow prompts

except there's no file called flashplayer in the debugger directory. Anyone else ran into this? How can I install flash player 9 debugger on my Ubuntu system?

Answer 1

If you're using something like Ubuntu, the Flash plugin is probably a system wide thing. Under Ubuntu 8.10 for example, I have it at:

/usr/lib/flashplugin-installer

additionally you'll find at:

/etc/alternatives/

links to it, so you can change which .so is used depending on the user.

The easiest thing you could probably do if the ./flashplayer-installer file doesn't exist (though it does in mine) is to copy the debug flashplayer library to this directory. e.g:

root@me:/usr/lib/flashplugin-installer# mv libflashplayer.so  libflashplayer.non-debug.so
root@me:/usr/lib/flashplugin-installer# cp ~jamie/Adobe_Flex_Builder_Linux/Player/linux/install_flash_player_9_linux/libflashplayer.so libflashplayer.debug.so 
root@me:/usr/lib/flashplugin-installer# ln -s libflashplayer.debug.so libflashplayer.so 

Answer 2

I haven't seen the issues you have, and perhaps your requirements restrict you to an older version, but I've had great success with flashplayer 10's debugger. You might try this one and see if it works.

Edit: Ahh, I just noticed one very pertinent statement you made: you require flashplayer 9. Sorry =(

Edit 2: I just had the same thing happen to me on Linux. When I extracted the tar.gz from Adobe, the installation script wasn't present. This said, I was able to get the debugger version of 9 installed anyway.

When you extracted, did you see a libflashplayer.so file? I didn't have an installation script, but I did get this file. If so, all you need to do is this:

1. Close all instances of Firefox
2. Backup your current libflashplayer.so module: ~/.mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so.org (this way, if something goes wrong, you can always put it back)
3. Copy the version you extracted from the Flash player download to the same plugins directory: cp /path/to/vers/9/libflashplayer.so ~/.mozilla/plugins/
4. Restart Firefox, open a Flash app, and right-click to check for the version

These steps worked perfectly for me, and I was able to run Flex Builder's debugger in Linux. Hope it works for you!

Answer 3

One way you can do it is downloading the flex 3 SDK for linux. When you download it you'll get a couple of tar's. You can find this in ~/flex_sdk_3/runtimes/10 if you want to install the flashplayer 10 and ~/flex_sdk_3/runtimes/lnx/ if you want the flashplayer 9. Uncompress those files (flashplayer.tar.gz and libflashplayer.so.tar.gz with tar -xvf). Now cp libflashplayer.so the file to /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ and if you want create symbolic links (ln -s flashplayer /usr/local/bin to have the player on your path

Answer 4

A tip for anyone who searches for this like I did... find out where libflashplayer.so currently is on your system:

sudo locate libflashplayer.so

Mine was in /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/

Once I replaced that file with the debug version of the file, Firefox reported that I had the debug version of the player.

Answer 5

I also had the same issue with flash player debugger. I followed the instructions given by bedwyr. It worked for me. To make it work, you create a directory named 'plugins' into ~/.mozilla if plugins directory is not found.

mkdir ~/.mozilla/plugins 

Then I copied libflashplayer.so to plugins directory. Now flash player debugger worked for my Flex Builder's application.