BleepingComputer.com: opera and firefox on ubuntu

Recently I posted here asking how to remove Ubuntu 9.04, but when it came time to actually do it I got really indecisive about it So I figured it was probably better to try and actually fix the things I was having problems with before doing away with all of it.

Things like youtube and embedded videos never work on Opera and they only sometimes work on Firefox, and a lot of websites don't display properly on either browser. How can I fix this? I guess I'm just missing an update or something. I tried to google the answer but different websites said to do different things, and I'm new to Ubuntu and usually have no idea what I'm doing anyway, so I wasn't sure what to do. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

You need to install Adobe Flash for firefox the following way so that you can watch videos on YouTube.

Make sure you are online.
Open Terminal window and type this: sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree and press Enter
It would ask your admin password. Supply the password and press enter.

I did that before, and I did it again just to be safe, but the problems didn't go away...

Hi,

have you installed the restricted-extras package? It installs most of the things you need for a browser to work nicely.
Could you describe more in detail what does not work on youtube?

See this guide for information on restricted formats and a guide on how to install the restricted-extras package: link

regards _temp_

Hi _temp_

I followed the instructions and restarted my computer, but videos and other stuff still won't work. The only thing that has changed as far as I can tell is that the fonts display different in Opera now (but I don't mind that).

In Opera, there's only a white space where the video should be on Youtube (and basically any other site that has sound or film clips on it). Occasionally there's a gray space with a play button, but even if I click on the button, nothing happens. Usually videos work in Firefox. Sometimes if something won't work in Opera, it will work in Firefox, but some websites (like Pandora) won't display correctly in either browser.

Hi,

have you previously installed other packages to get flash to work on your system? namely something with gnash or swfdec in the name?

Can you play Cd, DVDs and mp3 from your PC locally?

regards _temp_

It doesn't do too well with DVDs. I've tried twice to play different DVDs in VLC, and it sort of freaks out (vague, I know). I've never tried playing a CD in it before. I play mp3s all the time as well as movies from my hard drive.

I don't know about the packages. The person who set up my computer installed a lot of things for me. How do I check?

Hi,

you can use the following command in command line:

apt-cache policy <package name>

in the first line you'll see the name of the package, in the second the version of the package that is installed on your PC.

Please post back those first two lines for the following packages:

flashplugin-nonfree
swfdec-mozilla
swfdec-gnome
mozilla-plugin-gnash
gnash

regards _temp_

flashplugin-nonfree:
Installed: 10.0.22.87ubuntu2

swfdec-mozilla:
Installed: 0.8.2-1ubuntu1

swfdec-gnome:
Installed: (none)

mozilla-plugin-gnash:
Installed: (none)

gnash:
Installed: (none)

Hi,

ok, you have two flash applications installed, we're going to remove both and install flash again, hopefully this will help.

sudo apt-get remove flashplugin-* --purge

sudo apt-get remove --purge swfdec-mozilla

sudo apt-get install flashplugin-installer

did that improve anything?

regards _temp_

Yes! All websites seem to be working now in Firefox =D Thank you! In Opera, the audio part of film clips will play but the actual video still isn't there. If there's anyway you know how to fix that, that would be great, but if not that is fine too because at least things work in Firefox. Thank you so much

Hi,

I'm really not much of an opera person, so I probably won't be able to do much, but let's start with finding out the version of opera you have.
Maybe we'll get to the bottom of this.

please open a command line and enter:

apt-cache policy opera

and post the entire infos that this gives you in your next reply.

regards _temp_

opera:
Installed: 9.64.2480.gcc4.qt3
Candidate: 9.64.2480.gcc4.qt3
Version table:
*** 9.64.2480.gcc4.qt3 0
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Hi,

it looks as if your opera was installed manually, I would suggest that we remove that version (unless you have it heavily customized?) and add a repository from opera to your jaunty. This has the advantage that you will be able to receive updates to your opera the same way you get every other update as well and don't need to instal every update manually.

If you are willing to do this. (If not just say no )

Please start by uninstalling the current version of opera by typing this into the command line:

sudo apt-get remove opera

then add in the new repositories for opera by typing this:

wget -O - http://deb.opera.com/archive.key | sudo apt-key add -

and this:

echo "deb http://deb.opera.com/opera stable non-free" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/opera.list && sudo apt-get update

and finally reinstall opera, which will now get notifications about updates, so that you don't have to look after them.

sudo apt-get update


Normally Opera and Firefox should play well together. Opera will be looking for the flashplayer in mozilla's folder. Could you please check if that is the case with your opera:

Start Opera, enter about:plugins into your adressbar, hit enter and look for Shockwave Flashplayer. Please copy everything in that section into your next reply.

regards _temp_

Shockwave Flash:
application/futuresplash spl
application/x-shockwave-flash swf
/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/flashplugin-alternative.so