Flash 9 for FreeBSD 7.1

I hear the cheers already... Flash 9 for FreeBSD at last! And I don't mean having to run a Windows or Linux browser — Flash 9 in native Firefox 3. FreeBSD's linux emulation layer has undergone some upgrades recently, and as of FreeBSD 7.1 it is able to provide enough kernel support to get the linux Flash player version 9 running. Very good indeed, and hopefully it'll hold us out until Adobe create official native FreeBSD support (assuming that rumour comes true). Note: this only works on i386 and AMD64 platforms.

Let's get down to business. To get Flash 9 working you'll first need to upgrade to FreeBSD 7.1. Now 7.1 is not officially out yet, but if you CVSup from RELENG_7 as of about 2 weeks ago, all the necessary linux compatibility code is there already. I assume you know about CVSup and how to upgrade FreeBSD. Once that's done the rest is straight forward.

Step 1: Enable Linux compatibility and linprocfs
Add linux_enable="YES" to /etc/rc.conf. Add compat.linux.osrelease=2.6.16 to /etc/sysctl.conf. Add OVERRIDE_LINUX_BASE_PORT=f8 to /etc/make.conf. Add this line to /etc/fstab:

linproc /usr/compat/linux/proc linprocfs rw 0 0
Then run these commands:

mkdir -p /usr/compat/linux/proc
mount /usr/compat/linux/proc
/etc/rc.d/abi start
/etc/rc.d/sysctl start
Step 2: Update ports and install all the needed software
You will now need to install the following ports and their dependencies:

cd /usr/ports/emulators/linux_base-f8 && make install clean
cd /usr/ports/www/linux-flashplugin9 && make install clean
cd /usr/ports/www/nspluginwrapper && make install clean
Follow the nspluginwrapper instructions to enable all available plugins:

# nspluginwrapper -v -a -i
Auto-install plugins from /usr/X11R6/lib/browser_plugins
Looking for plugins in /usr/X11R6/lib/browser_plugins
Auto-install plugins from /usr/local/lib/npapi/linux-flashplugin
Looking for plugins in /usr/local/lib/npapi/linux-flashplugin
Install plugin /usr/local/lib/npapi/linux-flashplugin/libflashplayer.so
into /usr/local/lib/browser_plugins/npwrapper.libflashplayer.so
Auto-install plugins from /root/.mozilla/plugins
Looking for plugins in /root/.mozilla/plugins
Restart or open Firefox 3 and enter about:plugins into your address bar. You should see something like the following:



And that's it! Open your favourite Flash site and all should work.

If your browser doesn't register the Shockwave Flash plugin as pictured above, you might need to do a bit of extra work as I had to do on one of my machines:

cd /usr/local/lib/firefox3/plugins && ln -s /usr/local/lib/browser_plugins/npwrapper.libflashplayer.so npwrapper.libflashplayer.so
I'm not sure why one of my machines needed this, but it might happen to you so this is just a heads up.

Update: I have learned that the change with the plugin directory is due to a change in FreeBSD's Firefox 3 port. If you're running port version 3.0.1_1 or later you will need to use the new plugin directory as shown above. CVS change history can be seen here.

Enjoy!