Although the 32-bit version of Flash Player is sufficient I have seen complaints on the web about its performance, Adobe has a prerelease version of the Adobe® Flash® Player 10 software 64-bit Linux platforms that I wanted to use to maximize my 64-bit system. Please be aware that the prerelease software is made available to developers and consumers to test and it is possible that there could be issues. With that disclaimer, I have not had any issues with it and in my opinion it is more stable than the 32-bit version. For more information regarding the prerelease and to download the software go to the Adobe website here. 11/20 update -It appears that Adobe changed the links with the release of 10.1 which isn’t working on 64-bit Linux yet, this link will go directly to the 64-bit 10.0 version.
After downloading the zip file from the website open a terminal and go to the folder that contains the download. If you used Firefox it will automatically save to your Download folder. You can verify the location by right clicking and selecting Open Containing Folder in the download box. In my case it was /home/gerry/Downloads, be sure to include the exact letter cases (capital D).To go to the folder from the command prompt enter:
cd /home/gerry/Downloads
Now you are in the folder containing the file and you need to unzip it and move it to the plugin folder:
sudo tar xzf libflashplayer*
sudo cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/
Now you have copied the unzipped file to the plugin folder, I don’t like to accumulate files in the Download folder so if you are sure you won’t need them again or will download them if you need them, you can delete them. Since you are still in the Download folder the following command will only delete from that folder and not the plugin folder where you copied to.
To delete both the zip file and the unzipped file enter:
rm libflashplayer*
Now you have installed the 64-bit Flash Player and cleaned up the old files. If you want to verify which version is installed you can check on the Adobe page by going here. At the time of this writing my version is 10,0,32,18.
If you want to test out your new Flash Player with some fun sites check out When Flash Goes Evil: 10 Online Nastimations for Your Perverse Pleasure for a page full of sites utilizing Flash Player.
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:12 am
Itś really works!!! Thanks.
November 3rd, 2009 at 8:40 pm
no joy for me.. uninstalled the 32 flash player, then followed your isntructions for the 64. Now when i go to a page with flash on it, my browser just crashes.
November 3rd, 2009 at 10:13 pm
I’m sorry to hear that it’s not working. Check to see that the plugin is installed by opening Firefox and typing about:plugins under Shockwave you should see:
File name: libflashplayer.so
Shockwave Flash 10.0 r32
You can also navigate through the GUI under Filesystem/usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins to make sure that the libflashplayer.so file is there.
November 4th, 2009 at 9:19 am
Joy! Did what you said, then closed and restarted FireFox.
Worked Perfect!
November 5th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
THANK YOU VERY MUCH
It was easy and useful !!!
November 13th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Same problem as niite above. libflashplayer.so is in the correct place, but if I try and navigate to youtube, my browser quits. If I delete libflashplayer.so everything’s fine but I obviously can’t view youtube
November 13th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Have you installed Ubuntu Restricted Extras? You can do it from the Ubuntu software packages or at the command with sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras. This will install the 32-bit version of Flash which should work, but I am thinking there may be other dependencies with that are causing you problems, it’s the only other thing I did before adding the 64-bit flash player. I would try that and see if you are happy with it, if you still want to use the 64-bit Flash remove just the 32-bit Flash and follow the instructions in the post to install the 64-bit version.
November 13th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Hi,
Everyone seems to think this is easy
So what am I doing wrong?!?!
ian@ian-laptop:~/Downloads$ sudo cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/
cp: not writing through dangling symlink `/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so’
Thanks a lot in advance :-/
ian
November 14th, 2009 at 4:44 am
apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree
November 14th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Merci!
November 15th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
see another way here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1325824
November 18th, 2009 at 12:33 am
It’s a library if you haven’t installed the restricted packages listed above, there is no dynamic link to it. Better off just install flash non-free then replace the .so with the one specified here.
November 18th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Can you check reported link in your post with this:
http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10_64bit.html ?
November 21st, 2009 at 12:04 am
Thanks for pointing out Piero, Adobe must have changed the link when they added the 10.1 beta’s, but they are not working in 64 bit yet. I have made the update to the link.
December 1st, 2009 at 9:59 pm
Thanks for this easy-to-follow, informative post. I spent all day trying every other approach to getting flash plugin working.
December 2nd, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Worked for me too.
Ian, it might be something as stupid as the last slash. try the link /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
December 3rd, 2009 at 8:37 pm
Works for me as well. I went and posted a link to this page in ubuntu forums for other users. Thanks, Gerry.
December 5th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Well, maybe not.
It worked the first time, but after restarting the computer, it didn’t. So I recopied the .so to /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins, and it worked again until I restarted the computer. Tried recopying the file again, but it didn’t work this time. any idea?
December 5th, 2009 at 11:25 am
lemme fix that-
If i run “sudo cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/” every time I restart the computer, it works. any idea why I have to do this every time?
December 5th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Are you copying to lib or lib64? You said in your previous comment lib64, if you copy to lib it should also be in lib64. Not sure why it would delete on restart, might want to try deleting it and reinstalling it. I would also check Ubuntu Software Center to make sure that a previous 32 bit version is not installed.
December 6th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Finally got this to work thanks to your concise and easy to follow instructions, thanks!
December 11th, 2009 at 12:36 am
so this is what it really comes down to:
I don’t have any other flash version installed, just the 64bit one. Every time I restart firefox, I need to re-copy the .so to the lib folder for firefox to display any flash.
December 21st, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Not working, very frustrating — my “about:plugins” shows:
File name: libswfdecmozilla.so
Shockwave Flash 9.0 r999
How do I get rid of these (I couldn’t delete “libswfdecmozilla.so”) so that “about:plugins” can show
File name: libflashplayer.so
Shockwave Flash 10.0 r32 (tho mine’s a newer one) ??
My Tools –> Add-ons –> Plugins List indicates:
DivX Web Player 1.4.0.233;
Quicktime Plug-in 7.2.0;
Shockwave Flash 9.0 r999 (this is the 32-bit, I presume);
VLC Multimedia Plugin (compatible Totem 2.28.2)
“(The Totem 2.28.2 plugin handles video and audio streams)”;
Windows Media Player Plug-in 10 (compatible, Totem)
“(The Totem 2.28.2 plugin handles video and audio streams)”
Thanks for any tips.
December 21st, 2009 at 11:05 pm
I was able to uninstall the 32 bit version through the Ubuntu Software Center (Applications -> Ubuntu Software Center) before installing the 64 bit version. Since you have already installed the 64 bit I would try uninstalling it from there if possible, if that doesn’t work try the Package Manager to see if it Flash is showing there.
December 25th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
ARGH!!! How annoying. I’ve spent the better part of the morning followings guides on how to install 64-bit flash, none of them working.
Ten seconds following this article and bang flash is working.
THANK YOU!!!
December 29th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
It works thanks !!
January 5th, 2010 at 2:27 am
(Ubuntu 9.10) Well, I set out to install “TweetDeck”, which is an Adobe Air app available via the adobe site. The Adobe site prompted for installation of the browser flashplayer plugin so I could even see the download button for TweetDeck. I poked around a bit here and there, and found that in my particular installation of 9.04, you can go to the bottom of the Applications menu, and click on Ubuntu Software Center, and look for Get Free Software, Other… it’s in there, and I had it up and running in a matter of minutes… not sure if it’s 32 or 64 bit… about:plugins reveals use of npwrapper, so I assume 32 bit…
January 9th, 2010 at 7:23 am
I tried many other advices on the net until I bumped into yours and it finally worked. Thanks Gerry!!!
January 9th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Glad I could help!
January 10th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
[...] the .so that was loaded, with the latest 64bit release from Adobe. Just follow the instructions here, but for me the folder was /usr/lib/firefox/plugins, not /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins. addthis_url = [...]
January 16th, 2010 at 11:17 am
right, finally got it figured out:
there was another libflashplayer.so in the folder /usr/lib/adobe-flashplugin/ that firefox had file links to. replaced it with the new file and all is well, no more flash crashes every time I restart firefox
January 23rd, 2010 at 5:56 pm
Works perfectly for Ubuntu 9.1 64bit. Thank you!
February 7th, 2010 at 9:00 pm
Awesome…It works for me. great post bro.
February 22nd, 2010 at 5:24 am
Hi all there. I have Ubuntu 9.10 64bit and this did not work for me, but this helped me a lot. I did the same “hawk” says but in my case, the folder where firefox links is “/usr/lib/firefox-3.5.8/plugins”. So, copy your new “libflashplayer.so” in that folder too.
My final solution was:
-Paste libflashplayer.so in “/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins”
-Paste libflashplayer.so in “/usr/lib/firefox-3.5.8/plugins”
*Instead of 3.5.8, you may write your own firefox version.
Hope it works to you!! It worked for me. Thanks hawk.
March 14th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
So thought you should know but this has been in the 64bit Ubuntu forums for months… http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1259102