Ashutosh Sharma

We've been working on new features for the next version of AIR (such as 64-bit binaries and .deb/.rpm installers for AIR), as well as on fixing bugs reported by users (reported via the Adobe Wish Form, via blog posts and on Twitter).

To iron out as many issues as possible before coming out with a public release, we'd like to invite users to help test pre-release builds. If you're interested and comfortable working with pre-release software, please send an email to the AIR Linux program manager at rahul - dot - bansal - at - adobe - dot - com with answers to the following questions:

1. Will you be able to submit bug reports on issues that you find back to our development team?
2. How many hours a week can you spend testing on Linux?
3. What is the primary distribution of Linux that you’re using? If you are using more than one distribution, please list.
4. Will you be developing applications on your Linux machine (as opposed to writing on Windows and testing the applications on Linux)?
5. What other operating system are you using, if any (Mac, Windows)? Can you compare the behavior of AIR for Linux with AIR for Windows and AIR for Mac OS?
6. Are you working on an AIR application today? If so, please describe.

Please include your name, email address and your company's name.

Posted by Ashutosh Sharma at 6:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Adobe Reader 9.1 for Linux and Solaris x86 has been released today. Solaris x86 support was one of the most requested feature by users. As per the Reader team's announcement, this release includes the following major features:

    - Support for Tabbed Viewing (preview)
    - Super fast launch, and better performance than previous releases
    - Integration with Acrobat.com
    - IPv6 support
    - Enhanced support for PDF portfolios (preview)

The complete list is available here.

Adobe Reader 9.1 is now available for download and works on OpenSolaris, Solaris 10 and most modern Linux distributions such as Ubuntu 8.04, PCLinuxOS, Mandriva 2009, SLED 10, Mint Linux 6 and Fedora 10.

Posted by Ashutosh Sharma at 7:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A number of users have tweeted, blogged and sent us emails - "It's understandable for AIR itself to need root access during its installation (since it installs to /opt), but why do AIR applications need root access for installation, especially when I'm installing the application to a folder owned by me?"

The answer lies in the fact that AIR applications are similar to regular native applications - they install as native rpm/deb packages. This requires access to the rpm/deb system database (e.g. rpm database lock). And this is required even if the installation folder is chosen to be one that is owned by the current non-root user. In addition, with root privileges, it's also possible to install applications to a location that is accessible to other users on the system.

However, do note that when they are launched, AIR applications run with the privileges of the user launching the application and not root. The primary executables of AIR applications (under the bin/ folder in the installation path) do not have the setuid bit set. You should not be worried about AIR applications running with root privileges, based on the fact that their installation required superuser access - the two are completely independent.

Posted by Ashutosh Sharma at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

AIR applications are not web applications running outside the browser, but are full-fledged desktop applications with their own windows and access to the filesystem, clipboard and other system resources.

Being desktop applications, they should also integrate well with the system's package manager (instead of being simply extracted to a directory). On Windows, this corresponds to "Add/Remove Programs". On Linux, this means the likes of Synaptic or Pirut. This makes it easy for users - since they use the system's package manager to uninstall other applications, it should be no different for AIR applications. AIR also depends on the package manager for version management of applications (and of the runtime itself) and to ensure that required dependencies are fulfilled.

Since rpm and deb are the most popular package formats, we chose to focus on them. They have been widely adopted, are used in several popular Linux distributions and are not specific to a distro. Who knows which formats will be popular by the time the next version of AIR is released!

Though AIR's installer is available as a self-extracting executable and AIR applications are distributed as .air files, both of these get installed on the system as native rpm/deb packages. We're considering alternative distribution formats - If you have an idea or suggestion, please let us know.

Posted by Ashutosh Sharma at 7:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This article is based on the earlier tutorial about AIR Beta + Flex Builder, but is updated for the latest release of AIR (1.5.1).

The primary changes are:

1. Use AIR 1.5.1 SDK instead of AIR Beta SDK
2. Use Flex SDK 3.3 instead of Flex SDK 3.1

---

Some changes are required to get Flex Builder to use the latest AIR SDK for Linux. This is a step-by-step guide to get things up and running.

1. Ensure that you have Sun JRE >= 1.5 in your PATH (This can be verified with "java -version")

2. Install Eclipse (cpp or java) >= 3.3 to $HOME/eclipse
    - Download Eclipse IDE 3.4 from http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ (if you do not already have Eclipse >= 3.3)
    - Update: Use Eclipse IDE 3.3 (instead of 3.4), to enable the mxml editor (syntax highlighting and more) (from http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/packages/release/europa/winter)
    - cd ~
    - tar zxvf ./eclipse-cpp-ganymede-SR2-linux-gtk.tar.gz
    - This extracts eclipse under ~/eclipse

3. Install Flex Builder alpha 4 Eclipse plugin
    - Download the Flex Builder installer from http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flexbuilder_linux.html and launch it
    - chmod +x ~/flexbuilder_linux_install_a4_081408.bin
    - ~/flexbuilder_linux_install_a4_081408.bin
    - Choose $HOME/eclipse as the "Existing Eclipse Folder":

    - Choose "Proceed with caution" if prompted

4. Install Flex SDK 3.3
    - Download Flex SDK 3.3 from http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Download+Flex+3
       - Choose Build 3.3.0.4852, Adobe Flex SDK dated Feb 5, 2009
    - Unzip it to a new folder ("3.3") under ~/Adobe_Flex_Builder_Linux/sdks:
    - cd ~/Adobe_Flex_Builder_Linux/sdks
    - mkdir 3.3
    - cd 3.3
    - unzip ~/flex_sdk_3.3.zip

5. Install AIR 1.5.1 SDK under Flex SDK 3.3
    - Download Adobe AIR 1.5.1 SDK from http://www.adobe.com/products/air/tools/sdk/ to $HOME
    - Untar it to the folder created above
       - cd ~/Adobe_Flex_Builder_Linux/sdks/3.3
       - tar jxvf ~/air_1.5_sdk.tbz2
    - Rename bin/adl to bin/adl_lin and bin/adt to bin/adt_lin (These are what Flex Builder expects)
       - cd bin
       - mv adl adl_lin
       - mv adt adt_lin

6. Set the newly installed SDK as default
    - Launch eclipse
       - ~/eclipse/eclipse
    - Window -> Preferences -> Flex -> Installed Flex SDKs
    - Click on Add
    - Select ~/Adobe_Flex_Builder_Linux/sdks/3.3 as the "Flex SDK location". Click OK.

       - Choose "Flex 3.3" as the active SDK by selecting its checkbox. Click OK.

We're done!

To verify that the setup is correct:

1. Create a new AIR application
    - Create a new Flex Builder project (through File -> New)
    - Choose a project name, choose "Desktop application (runs in Adobe AIR)" as the application type. Click Finish.
    - If you see the message "Could not open the editor: Assertion failed", right-click on the .mxml file in the Flex Navigator panel and select Open with > Text Editor. You can then edit the mxml file, though without syntax highlighting and other features of the mxml editor.

2. Edit the new application's .mxml file
    - Change the line:
       <mx:WindowedApplication xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" layout="absolute">
       to
       <mx:WindowedApplication xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" layout="absolute" title="{NativeApplication.nativeApplication.runtimeVersion}">

3. Run the application (Ctrl-F11)

4. The application's window will show up. Check the title of the window. It should be "1.5.1.8210" (latest AIR SDK) if everything was set up correctly.

The application can be packaged as a .air file through File -> Export -> Flex Builder -> Release Build.

Posted by Ashutosh Sharma at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

The Developer Release Notes for AIR 1.5.1 mention the following:

For client browsers to recognize an AIR application when being downloaded, the web server hosting the AIR application needs to map the application/vnd.adobe.air-applicationinstaller-package+zip MIME content type to the ".air" extension. For example, for an Apache web server, add the following to the AddType section:

AddType application/vnd.adobe.air-application-installer-package+zip .air

You can do this in the web server configuration (e.g. httpd.conf or .htaccess for Apache).

Some webservers have an incorrect default value of the MIME type for AIR applications: e.g. Some versions of Apache serve AIR applications with the following MIME type: application/vnd.adobe.apollo-install-package. This MIME type was prevalent when AIR was still in its Beta phase. Unless the MIME type is corrected on servers, there would be a mismatch when a user downloads an AIR application and tries to open it right away.

The following screenshots (Ubuntu Linux 8.10, Firefox 3.0, AIR 1.5.1 installed) highlight the problem encountered by users if the MIME type is not correctly set on the web server.

When clicking on a .air file in the browser, the following dialog is presented. Note the absence of AIR's icon next to the file's name (AIRDashboard.air)

The download list shows the download as failed:

and the application installation does not begin:

If the web server is configured with the correct MIME type, the same sequence is as follows:

If you administer a web server, please ensure that the correct MIME type has been added for .air files. If you are a user and encounter the problem highlighted above, do let your web server administrator know.

Posted by Ashutosh Sharma at 5:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We've been scouting blog posts, tweets and news articles and it seems that some users are facing problems trying to install AIR apps with the 1.5 Linux release.

If you had installed an AIR app with the Beta release of AIR, there's some cleanup required before you can use the app with AIR 1.5.

We've put up a FAQ about installation issues on the AIR team blog - If you're unable to use your favorite application with AIR 1.5, do have a look. After the requisite cleanup, TweetDeck 0.20, twhirl 0.8.7 etc. work great!

Posted by Ashutosh Sharma at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Based on community feedback, a pre-release version of native 64-bit Flash Player 10 is now available on Adobe Labs (x86-64, Linux).

Check out the announcement on the Linux Flash Player blog!

Posted by Ashutosh Sharma at 2:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Although the list of supported distributions (Ubuntu 7.10, Fedora 8, OpenSuSE 10.3) is small compared to the total number of Linux distros out there, we expect AIR to run fine on a lot more of them.

It is not possible for us to exhaustively test all features on all distributions - we depend on you for this feedback. To ensure that AIR runs on as many distributions as possible, implementation of AIR features is based on standard specifications (such as the FreeDesktop specs). More and more distributions, window managers and desktop environments now adhere to these.

It would also be great to have feedback about other devices that run Linux, such as OLPC XO, EEE PC and Samsung Q1U.

System requirements are listed as part of the release notes.

We'd like to know if the latest release on labs works for your favorite distribution - please go ahead and post the result in a comment below.

Posted by Ashutosh Sharma at 3:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

We just released the beta version of Adobe AIR for Linux on Adobe Labs!

This Labs release of AIR has all features implemented for Linux, except support for DRM and badge installations. Major new features include support for system tray icons, keyboard shortcuts, localization, internationalized input (IME support), filetype registration, SWF and PDF in HTML, multi-monitor support, fullscreen mode, encrypted local storage, support for V4L2 cameras and printing.

The list of supported distributions has also been updated to:

1. Ubuntu 7.10
2. Fedora 8
3. OpenSuSE 10.3

Any AIR application that works on Windows/Mac AIR release version 1.1 should ideally work on Linux too, except if it uses DRM features. Let us know if you face any issues.

Release notes provide more details about system requirements, installation instructions and any known issues.

Go get some fresh AIR and let us know how it works out for you!

Posted by Ashutosh Sharma at 12:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (21)

We've been actively working on features that weren't present in the alpha release of AIR for Linux - system tray icon, keyboard accelerators, PDF & SWF in HTML, encrypted local store, multi-monitor support and more.

To iron out as many issues as possible before coming out with a public beta release on Adobe Labs, we'd like to invite users to help test pre-release builds. If you're interested and comfortable working with pre-release software, please send an email to the AIR Linux program manager at ashish - dot - baweja - at - adobe - dot - com with answers to the following questions (picked from James Ward's post before the first Labs release):

1. Will you be able to submit bug reports on issues that you find back to our development team?
2. How many hours a week can you spend testing on Linux?
3. What is the primary distribution of Linux that you’re using? If you are using more than one distribution, please list.
4. Will you be developing applications on your Linux machine (as opposed to writing on Windows and testing the applications on Linux)?
5. What other operating system are you using, if any (Mac, Windows)? Can you compare the behavior of AIR for Linux with AIR for Windows and AIR for Mac OS?
6. Are you working on an AIR application today? If so, please describe.

Please include your name, email address and your company's name.

Posted by Ashutosh Sharma at 6:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With the alpha build of AIR on Linux, setting up an HTTP proxy for use by AIR applications requires exporting environment variables AIR_PROXY_SERVER and AIR_PROXY_PORT with appropriate values.

We intend to do away with this and use something that's standard on Linux. The problem is that there is no standard. GNOME and KDE use different mechanisms. Individual applications use their own mechanisms.

We've decided to use the current desktop environment's proxy settings, with the option of having these overridden with an environment variable.

On KDE, proxy settings can be set using kcontrol (KDE Control Center). On GNOME, these can be set using gnome-network-preferences (or directly using gconf-editor). The following gconf keys are involved:

a) /system/proxy/mode - A non-'none' value indicates that a proxy has been set (recommended value = "manual")
b) /system/http_proxy/host
c) /system/http_proxy/port

Most browsers too use these values to figure out system proxy settings.

These settings can be overridden with an environment variable http_proxy (with its value in the format http://hostname:port). This variable is the most common one used by applications on Linux. apt-get and wget, for instance, use it.

I'm looking forward to freedesktop.org's shared configuration system as one standard, desktop-agnostic mechanism for managing such per-user configuration settings. (It's currently in the planning/requirements-gathering stage.)

Posted by Ashutosh Sharma at 1:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hi and welcome to my blog. I'm an engineer working on Adobe AIR for Linux operating environments.

Through this blog, in addition to providing updates about releases (and pre-releases), I'd like to discuss Linux-specific issues that pertain to Adobe AIR - troubleshooting tips, feedback about what features and distributions you think are most important, what issues you face, how certain features work (or not) under specific desktop and windowing environments. I may also solicit inputs from you to help us decide how we should proceed on specific issues.

If you haven't yet tried it, I encourage you to go get AIR and check out your favorite app on Linux. Details of what does and does not work in the alpha release on Adobe Labs are available in the release notes. (If you find problems, the best place to report them is the labs forum).

Posted by Ashutosh Sharma at 5:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)