Submitted by The second alpha release of Gnash, 0.7.2, has just been announced. Gnash is a GPL Flash movie player and browser plugin that runs on many GNU/Linux distributions, embedded GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, non x86 processors, and 64 bit architectures.
Until it plays nice with content on YouTube and MySpace, I’m sure most people will stick with Adobe’s far superior product.
Except for users using a 64-bit browser under Linux. We don’t have the choice of using Adobe’s product.
True, I honeslty forgot about that. I do hope Adobe will put out a 64bit version when FP9 is finally done.
You do have a choice, you can run 32-bit browser or use plugin wrapper (http://freshmeat.net/projects/nspluginwrapper/).
Cool, I didn’t know such a thing existed! Thanks for the tip, now I can install 64-bit Gentoo
You do have a choice, you can run 32-bit browser or use plugin wrapper
Or not use Flash. I have no problem with not being able to view lots of crappy emo videos on myspace and not getting bombarded with flash ads.
I might try Gnash though – there are times it would be handy, even if I secretly wish web designers would get over Flash.
Wine on Linux is starting to get fairly stable. If you run firefox through wine it’ll do Flash on 64bit linux just fine (well most of the time
Do you have more than 4 GB or ram? If not, why use a 64 bit version?
/me happily uses 32-bit ubuntu on my amd 64 bit box
“Do you have more than 4 GB or ram? If not, why use a 64 bit version?”
A. In most cases, it’s ~2-3GB per user-land process.
B. 64bit has additional registers that improve performance by 5-25% (depending on the application).
C. Running 32bit software on 64bit OS requires a boat-load of 32bit dependencies.
– Gilboa
You mean those people on PPC or amd64? The ones that have NOTHING right now? I’m not sure I’d call a plugin that doesn’t run at all “far superior”.
Edited 2006-11-17 22:19
Hard to believe isn’t it? It would appear Adobe just doesn’t seem to think we 64 bit users are worth developing for.
Yeah, it will come eventually, especially as the number of 64-bit boxes begins to overshadow the 32-bit systems of yore. Isn’t there a way to run the 32-bit mode one though? Kinda like how Win32 can still run Win16 mode apps? I’ll admit to being clueless when it comes to 64-bit computing. I’ll probably still be running the same Athlon XP 2500 I’ve been running for the last 3 years for the next 5 years.
>> You mean those people on PPC or amd64? The ones that have NOTHING right now? I’m not sure I’d call a plugin that doesn’t run at all “far superior”.
Um, my comment had nothing to do with people on PPC, because I was referring to the majority of computer users – those who use the IA32/x86 arch, and it’s variants. No one wants to listen to “justified indignation” with regard to other minority arches. Less popular CPUs = less attention from the mainstream of programmers, and less support.
There is a 32 bit compatiblity layer but I didn’t kick down 2k plus worth of hardware to run crippled so I am going without, fsck ’em.
No one wants to listen to “justified indignation” with regard to other minority arches. Less popular CPUs = less attention from the mainstream of programmers, and less support.
Right, so stop using Linux (or your favourite alternative OS, or even MacOS X) just now. No one wants to listen to “justified indignation” with regard to other minority operating systems. Less popular OSs = less attention from the mainstream of programmers, and less support.
Sarcasm apart, if a bunch of folks working more or less for hobby on Gnash starting from zero can make a multi-architecture plugin, there’s no excuse for Adobe not doing it.
Sarcasm apart, if a bunch of folks working more or less for hobby on Gnash starting from zero can make a multi-architecture plugin, there’s no excuse for Adobe not doing it.
Either you’re confusing capability with incentive, or you’re under the mistaken impression that Adobe is a non-profit charity.
Sarcasm apart, if a bunch of folks working more or less for hobby on Gnash starting from zero can make a multi-architecture plugin, there’s no excuse for Adobe not doing it.
From what I’ve read, Flash was written using a good deal of assembly [1], which is why it will be difficult to port. I doubt the hobbyists putting together gnash are at the point of focusing on speed issues yet, and it may not be fast enough for real use without similar optimizations.
[1] http://www.kaourantin.net/2005/08/porting-flash-player-to-alternati…
actually gnash/gplflash plays some swf files considerably faster than adobes (in talking about some stuff adobes cant do in realtime speed). and well, its not because gplflash/gnash just not does some of its things, cause the output looks the same
True, but at the same time, atleast with this, people won’t be held to ransome by Adobe; people said the same thing about the early PDF readers, and now, the purpose of using the ‘blessed’ version from Adobe? very niche needs.
It would be nice if Gnash actually put up a todo list so that devotee’s such as myself can track what needs to be implemented.
do they have audio support yet? this’ll be the last piece of the PPC Linux puzzle for my iBook G3 running xubuntu…
yes, gnash now got audio support. Though not for external mp3-files yet, so online radios like pandora.com wont work – yet.
The official announcement is here:
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.gnash.devel/989
One of the best new features is the 2D Anti-Grain Geometry (agg) graphics support, which allows users of non-binary blob video drivers to view flash at much faster speeds than was available before with software GL rendering.
Edited 2006-11-17 23:26
One of the best new features is the 2D Anti-Grain Geometry (agg) graphics support,
Oh, AGG is nice. But it have now changed its license from BSD to GPL.
In case of Gnash it makes no problem, because it is itself GPL. Also there exitsing the possibility to use old versions of AGG.
But its a sad thing, that the Author have changed the license.
http://www.antigrain.com/license/index.html
But the author sais, you can contact him about this if you want:
http://www.antigrain.com/news/index.html
And at
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=30899158&for…
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=30900865&for…
people sayd, that they have already planed to integrate AGG into Firefox and co for rendering.
Its a Flash player, a not particularly featured one, just get Adobe’s.
what I need is a Flash development program for Linux.
Hell no, what Linux users need its a Free alternative to flash, ain’t that the porpose of SVG?
To me the problem is the lack of SVG animation software makers, the standar and the format is there but till now nobody in the free world have has the initiciative to start a project with that magnitude.
We have inkscape and is great, now we need something that can do what inkscape does plus animation and scripting.
Inkscape will do animation in the future, since animation is part of the SVG specification and they want to be fully compatible with the specs. As for scripting, I don’t have clue.
OpenVG is also really cool, which means, SVG acceleration on top of OpenGL
Edited 2006-11-18 03:12
SVG can be scripted right now with JavaScript manipulating the DocumentObjectModel.
From what I understand, creating animated SVG, like implementing fullyn(which no one has done with SVG – only small parts of it/bare minimum) SVG, is due to the complex nature of it.
Its unfortunate that a company like Adobe just don’t opensource the bloody plugin under a BSD licence so everyone using every device imaginable can access flash content – it certainly would boost users, developers and software sales; its a win-win situation. Too bad Adobe has its head up its ass half the time.
True, and I support that. But the OP is right. Web development, unfortunately (I don’t like Flash that much) needs Flash development, in the real world.
Having a free suite to develop Flash and a working free Flash plugin would make Flash an almost-free format -that is, a format that is editable and readable with just free software. It still wouldn’t be a real free format, but it would be a big improvement both for free software and for interoperability with proprietary software.
Does anybody know if there is an ETA for a relatively stable build of gnash that will play, for example, youtube and myspace videos (yes, i like my emo videos
)?
Looking forward to finally having something on ppc.
I second this question
Does anybody know if there is an ETA for a relatively stable build of gnash that will play, for example, youtube and myspace videos (yes, i like my emo videos
)?
It’s being worked on, and will hopefully be ready within a few months or less.
I used http://gplflash.sourceforge.net/ for quite a long time, as I’m less happy with binary anything.
It crashed firefox all the time, making browsing worthless.
I’ve never been particularly happy with flash on linux.
I tried gnash about two months ago and received the same crashing problems.
Personally I do not need or want a *full* version of flash as most flash animations etc are annoying at best. I just want stability over everything.
The mailing lists are quite active for gnash. Its worth looking at the open sourcing of ActiveScript, and its inclusion in firefox. As those discussions are quite interesting in the mailing lists.
Its kind of lame, but I installed this so that when I have people shoulder surfing me, I don’t have to tell them why I don’t have flash installed. I’d decline to play the files now, too, but at least it doesn’t _look_ alienating. Which as we all know, is what it’s all about. *wink*
It would be nice when I can see the few decent SWF animations on YouTube, but I’m glad the project has got this far. Most others died at SWF version 4.