How to watch Netflix on Linux Mint 13 (without a VM)

[Mozenrath]

Because of Microsoft, Netflix hasn't officially supported Linux. For a while the best workaround I've found was to install TinyXP in Virtualbox and use Netflix in that. But booting up a while other operating system in a VM is a pain in the rear, and even running XP still takes up memory and CPU usage. Of course I tried running Silverlight(the M$ plugin used by Netflix) in Firefox in Wine, but I could never get that to work.

Apparently, someone now has.

To try it out, go to http://www.redmondpie.com/how-to-run-ne ... -tutorial/ and use the PPA to install "netflix-desktop". It seems to be a separate Wine/Firefox installation that is able to get Silverlight running smoothly enough to play Netflix. After it is finished installing, you can click on "Netflix Desktop" in the Mint Menu and Netflix will come up fullscreen.

Anyone else here want to try it out? It worked for me the first time, and even runs fairly well on my netbook.

[cmorsanchez]

I tried it and also got it working. However, when a video plays it is sped up (audio and visual) as if in fast fwd and also has a bit of static in the sound. I dont experience this with any other of my Mint 64 Nadia Cinnamon progs. Im trying to track down the source of the mishandling of the vid. Do you run it on a SSD? Thanks. I just posted some details about it at viewtopic.php?f=47&t=122113

[Mozenrath]

No, I'm not using an SSD. Also, the video actually does lag a little on my netbook, but at least I get good sound. It seems to work fine on my desktop computer, which also has a HDD.

[cmorsanchez]

I use a combo of SSD and Hdd. Netflix on linux , It now works great!!!!

Had to force architecture change to accept 32 bit progs by adding ia32libs. Then I got closer to a successful install. Next I had to downgrade xorg/xserver from 1.13 to 1.12 and my ati radeon drivers from the new default mint radeon drivers (~'gallium cedar'?, i forget what it was called) to the fglrx (i also first tried fglrx-legacy but that failed) with amdccc and set up the new driver configs. Reboot and ....

After that, the NETFLIX desktop install was complete and I commenced playing movies perfectly.

I did notice sometimes that occasionally the firefox window which netflix plays in would temporarily freeze at the initiation of a movie, but I resolved this by grabbing the window edge (the vertical axis and the horiz axis) to change its size and then goto full screen (f11/escape) and back out of full screen again. This change in window dimensions would 'reset' the graphics within the window resulting in a normal viewing of a movie with perfect audio and visual.

Thanks for everyone's insight, I appreciate the help. The ATI Radeon part was tricky like usual with various distros because its easy to get stuck with a 'no display' environment, so had to be careful and take my time. But there is beneficial docs available to guide this process. See below for help.
****************AWESOME *******************
http://ubuntuxtreme.com/howto/how-to-fi ... ntu-12-10/
http://www.ubuntuvibes.com/2012/10/how- ... egacy.html
http://askubuntu.com/questions/203232/r ... pported-wh