How to Install the Adobe Flash Plugin for Linux

Traditionally, one of the biggest gripes many people have about most Linux distributions was the lack of the Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Flash Player and Plugin. Adobe has recently made the availability of the Flash player more up-to-date (it has finally come in line with the Windows and Macintosh releases, after years of being stuck a full release cycle or two behind), which means Linux users are now - finally - as up-to-date as the rest of the computing world.

This how-to article will go over what I feel is the simplest way to install the Adobe Flash plugin.

While some Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu, now include the Adobe Flash plugin for Mozilla web browsers in the standard Ubuntu repositories, we will assume for a moment that Ubuntu is not your distribution of choice. How does one go about installing it? It's as simple as 1,2,3.

Step One: Download the correct file from Adobe.com

Simply point your web browser to www.adobe.com and click the "Get Adobe Flash Player" button that appears on the main page. The page that loads offers a choice of downloads, either a packaged .rpm file for systems which use that format, or a generic tar.gz file for all other packaging methods. For the purposes of this tutorial, we will download the tar.gz file, which can be found at this link.

Step Two: Unpack the Flash Plugin archive

In most distributions, simply double-clicking on the archive will open up an archive manager. Click to extract the archive. Your home directory is as good a place as any, as is the Desktop.

Step Three: Navigate to the directory and start the installation script

This next step is two small steps. First is open up a terminal, then change your directory to the expanded folder. An easy way to do this is type "cd" and then a space, then drag the expanded folder into the terminal. Hit return and you will find yourself "inside" the folder. The final step is, as root, to start the installation script.

Depending on your distribution, this can be accomplished either of two ways. If your distribution, like Ubuntu, uses "sudo," then type in the following command:

sudo ./flashplayer-installer