How to install Ubuntu Flash Player: You have finally made up your mind to take your first steps into the world of Linux. You have downloaded Ubuntu and little by little you are learning how to use it. I bet it was all much simpler than you imagined: the PC hardware components were recognized at the first “hit”, without requiring external drivers, and many of the programs you used to use on Windows you found them “intact” and also run on the penguin’s operating system. What more do you want? Well, actually there is only one small detail missing, Flash Player.
Taken from the enthusiasm of working in this new virtual environment, you forgot to download the famous Adobe plugin, and so much of the video and interactive content available online cannot be reproduced on your computer. Well, don’t panic. Installing Flash Player Ubuntu is really a breeze – almost easier than on Windows – and I’m going to prove it to you. Follow the instructions below and, in no time, you can play any Flash content directly from Mozilla Firefox (the default Ubuntu browser) or from Chromium / Chrome.
How do you say? Have you already tried downloading Flash Player but have you received strange error messages? I’ll explain how to solve this type of problem too, but now let’s go one step at a time. I will use Ubuntu 16.04 for the tutorial, but the procedure should also be valid for other versions of the Canonical operating system.
Preliminary operations
To install Flash Player Ubuntu you must make sure that Canonical’s partners are selected from the Ubuntu Software Center repositories.
Then go to System Settings (the gear icon located in the left sidebar) and click on the Software and updates icon . In the window that opens, select the Other software tab and, if it is not yet present, put the check mark next to the Canonical Partner item .
Finally, type the password of your user account on Ubuntu (the one you use to access the system) and press the Authenticate , Close and Reload buttons to save the changes.
Download Flash Player for Ubuntu
Now you are ready to take action! To install Flash Player on Ubuntu, connect to this web page using Firefox and click on the orange button available on the Software Center . So choose to open the link using AptURL and proceed to install the plugin by clicking on the Install button and typing the Ubuntu administration password.
The installation procedure should not last long. At the end, try to open Firefox or Chromium and connect to a web page that contains elements in Flash (e.g. the Flash Player test page ). If all went well, you will be able to view all the contents without problems.
Note: the versions of Flash Player installed in Firefox and Chromium may be different as the Extended Support Release version of Flash for Firefox has not been updated in parallel with that intended for Chromium (at the time of this writing, the Firefox plugin is stopped at version 11.2.202.637 while that for Chromium has reached version 23.0.0.185).
Flash Player for Ubuntu – what to do in case of problems
If an error message appears during the installation of Flash Player for Ubuntu, try to solve the problem by doing so.
- Open the Ubuntu Terminal (you can find it easily by clicking on the button with the logo of the operating system and typing its name in the search field that appears at the top);
- Give the command
sudo apt-get purge adobe-flashplugin; - Type the password of your user account, press Enter and wait for the command to be executed;
- Give the command
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install adobe-flashplugin;
- Wait for the Flash Player installation to complete;
- Close the Terminal.
If it is impossible to install Flash Player even from the Terminal, try to install the plugin manually as explained below.
- Connect to the official Flash Player website ;
- Select the item .tar.gz for Linux environments from the drop-down menu located at the bottom left;
- Press on the Download button ;
- Wait for the download to finish;
- Start the Terminal and type the following commands
cd /home/user/Downloadswhere instead ofuseryou have to type your username. To move to the folder where you stored the Flash Player installation package.tar zxfv install_flash_player_11_linux.x86_64.tar.gz libflashplayer.sowhere instead ofinstall_flash_player_11_linux.x86_64.tar.gzyou have to type the exact name of the file downloaded a little earlier from the Flash Player site. To extract the plugin from its distribution package.sudo cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/pluginsto copy Flash Player to the Firefox plugins folder.
If you use Chromium, Opera or another Chromium-based browser and you cannot install the most recent version of Flash Player, try to uninstall the old version of the plugin ( pepperflashplugin-nonfree , now no longer supported) and to install the new one. To do this, open the Ubuntu Terminal and issue the following commands.
sudo apt remove pepperflashplugin-nonfree flashplugin-installerto remove old versions of Flash Player.sudo apt updateto update repository packages.sudo apt install adobe-flashpluginto install the latest version of Flash Player.
After entering the commands, you will need to type the Ubuntu administration password. Also to apply the changes you may need to restart the browser (in this case Chromium, Opera or another browser based on Chromium). Once the Flash Player update procedure is complete, open your navigation program, connected to a web page that contains elements in Flash (e.g. the Flash Player test page ) and check that everything went in the right direction.
In the unfortunate event that problems with Flash Player persist, try searching on Google for specific instructions for installing the plugin on the version of Ubuntu and the browser in use (eg “how to install Flash Player Ubuntu 16.04 Chromium”). On forums or blogs dedicated to the Linux world you will surely find the answers to your doubts!