by Mike Melanson
Created
Thanks to those who advised me recently that there is no reason that the Linux kernel should not support my network hardware. You were right, just as long as I have a recent kernel. The problem was that I was trying to use a slightly out of date Gentoo Linux distribution (that would be upgraded after installation). Hey, I’m not used to using cutting edge network hardware– my 3com 3c905 NICs still serve me well. Normally, I do my homework before purchasing hardware on which I plan to run the penguin-based OS, but The Company provided this box to our group.
Anyway, the Flash-on-Linux development posse now has a beefy new Gentoo-based server that will aid us in a number of ways (think distcc for the non-negligible source tree). And I was worried I would have to learn how to operate a more, shall we say, Enterprise-focused Linux distribution for this task. For posterity and education I have documented my findings at the Gentoo Wiki.
I like Gentoo, I really do, except when it doesn’t work as advertised. Scratch that. Gentoo is still my current favorite distribution and nearly always works as advertised.
You probably already know, but in case you don’t: with exactly one gig of RAM, there’s a kernel config option you’ll want to turn on, otherwise you’ll have only 840ish mb of usable memory.”Processor type and features” –> “Memory split (3G/1G user/kernel split (for full 1G low memory))”
Sterling: As a matter of fact, I didn’t know that. But yes, ‘top’ doesn’t seem to report a full gigabyte of physical RAM. I have a gig in my own AMD64 machine but it’s obviously not the same issue for a 64-bit CPU.Thanks for the tip. Takes me back to the days when I had to pass special options to the kernel at boot up in order to break memory barriers that seem trivial today (it was something like 64 or 128 MB).
yay Gentoo
Will Flash-on-Linux be i386-only or will there be a release for AMD64 as well? How about other architectures like PowerPC, ARM?
Hey, Mike. Good to hear you’re working dilligently on Flash Player 9 for Linux… there’s just one blatantly large problem with your work so far.IT NEEDS TO BE OUT SOONER.I understand you’re working hard. But if Flash 9 for Linux is coming out in early 2007, then fuck this shit. I’m switching to emulating Flash 9 on Wine, damnit.
For all the people wanting flash plugins on non i386 platforms, check this out:http://weblogs.macromedia.com/jd/archives/2006/07/flash_64-bit_li.cfm
That’s a good point, I bet Mike hadn’t noticed there were other architectures – no-one’s mentioned it before…
Why not try Ubuntu?It’s C00L, it’s good and … i haven’t ANY problem with it.And, For all those people asking for a FP9Linux release : Adobe won’t do that. Comments asking for one won’t help FP9-developers to work faster. An idea : Perhaps, Adobe could release a developer-version each 2 month or so to make us happy ^^
Why not Ubuntu? Ubuntu = “linux for the masses”. Obviously developing Flash Player 9 is not something “the masses” typically do.Could you *please* widen this blog? It’s like 400px wide, it’s like reading a livejournal…
Calm down Mike. Gentoo is a very good linux distribution, and I love it. Ubuntu is nice, but (for me) Gentoo is better. When you have a problem like this you can post it on the IRC channel #gentoo at freenode. There you can always find help to problems like this. However this problem can be resolved editing the file /etc/conf.d/net and adding the lines: iface_ethN=”192.168.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.0.255″ gateway=”ethN/192.168.0.1″ Replace ethN for you interface card and the ip, netmask, broadcast and gateway address to your own. If you need more help, goto IRC or visit the gentoo Wiki. I hope this help.
Hi Mike,glad to know everything is working good. But when will you finally be able to give us an answer about Flash Linux-AMD64 support?I’ve been asking you about that for so long now… should I beg for an answer?
I use debian on most of my boxes, and recently installed gentoo on one of my boxes. Gentoo install was fun but time consuming, thats my only comment on gentoo.Also:W ineI sN ot anE mulator!
So… when exactly can we expect a beta/alpha/whatever release of Flash 9? I have a good overall opinion of Flash on the Windows side, but on Linux it just plain sucks. Flash makes Mozilla/Firefox unstable, uses tons of CPU and memory, the sound hardly works unless I explicitly kill ESD and any other application using sound… ugh. And when the sound does work, it always gets out of sync with the video somehow.And on top of that, more and more sites are requiring Flash 8. Which means we can’t view them.I just hope you guys can release a beta before early 2007. That’s just too long.
We need ANY version of flash which simply has sound that is in sync. I reckon 99% of the linux community want that most, and everything else can come second!
I’d rather have flash with alsa than syncing
I’m sick of having to try and kill everything that could possibly be using the sound card just to watch something on youtube or google video 
Glad you got your server up and running. Early ought-seven does sound like a hella long wait, but if you’re gonna do something, do it right, eh?Just make sure we get FP9 before Win gets FP10.
As a gentoo fan and linux freak all I can say is: you have made the best choice there is, with that kind of power I may hope of seeing fp9 working fawlessly on linux.ps. maybe some special for us – gentoo ones, like ex. from-the-authors ebuild?
Want some of my binary packages?
Please hurry. This is ridiculous. A company like Adobe should be big enough to have made this happen long ago (had Adobe not been in Microsofts pocket, and purposely hindering the Linux Flash developement).