[SOLVED] Flash player plugin

[Andy-A]

I got an update to libhal1-flash today, which triggered installation of new package flashplayer-mozilla (latest version of flash).

Updates to flash used to arrive as mint-flashplugin. Do I still need this installed? And what about mint-flashplugin-11 and mint-flashplugin-steam?

Another flash question, I have some games saved as .swf files. These used to play in Firefox, but now I get a 'What should firefox do with this file?' box.
If I select open with firefox, it just opens another tab and asks me again?

[ccprog]

I also wondered about this one. What it in fact does is install the flashplugin a second time, in a second place.

Firefox doesn't seem to mind too much. Where you will see consequences is in the future, because when Adobe publishes an update for the flashplayer, you will receive it two times, once for each of the packages flashplayer-mozilla and mint-flashplugin-11. (mint-flashplugin is a metapackage pointing at mint-flashplugin-11).

Could you uninstall mint-flashplugin? Yes and no. The dependencies of metapackages go like this:
mint-meta-debian-codecs

• mint-flashplugin
  • mint-flashplugin-11 (provides /opt/mint-flashplugin-11/libflashplayer.so)
  libhal1-flash
  • flashplayer-mozilla (provides /usr/lib/flashplayer-mozilla/libflashplayer.so)
  (ca 20 other Multimedia packages)

So, you would have to uninstall mint-meta-debian-codecs first and than take care of installing new multimedia packages that might appear in the future yourself. I decided that I won't go that way, but to leave libhal1-flash at its old version, since I don't need it anyway.

For your other question, look at Firefox Settings - Applications. There are two entries for Shockwave Flash files. Both should be set to "Use Flash plugin (in Firefox)". (I hope I got that right in english, I have a translated version...)

[Andy-A]

Thank you for your reply.

Yes, I think the multiple flash packages issue is because of a dependency in the latest version of libhal1-flash, but I do view DRM content in flash (unfortunately), so I will leave it (maybe I will receive flash updates sooner!).

My Firefox Settings - Applications shows 3 entries for Shockwave Flash files. The middle one does not have a "Use Shockwave Flash (in Firefox)" option.

I tried deleting the mimeTypes.rdf file, which gets re-created as defaults, leaving 2 entries, but I still get a 'What should firefox do with this file?' box, and selecting Other and navigating to Firefox re-creates the third entry with no "Use Shockwave Flash (in Firefox)" option? The .swf games did used to work in LMDE, prior to Betsy I think.

If all else fails, I have an old XP laptop which plays them.

[ccprog]

This might be helpfull (answer #14):
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2218732

[Andy-A]

That suggestion for Ubuntu works OK, and doesn't seem break anything else so far, so I'm marking it as solved.

[ccprog]

Also, the maintainer of deb-multimedia has added mint-flashplugin as an alternative dependency. So, after updating to version 0.3.2-dmo2+bp2, it should be possible to uninstall flashplayer-mozilla without further consequences.