Having trouble with YouTube in Ubuntu Karmic?
- By: JP Smith | Published: November 2, 2009
- Categories:
Open Source,
Tips and Tricks
-
I actually installed the latest version of Ubuntu Linux, 9.10 ("Karmic Koala") over a week ago, when it was still in release client status. Usually, by then, Ubuntu releases are pretty much ready for prime-time. However, one thing that kept bugging me was that I couldn't play embedded Flash videos in Firefox. On this machine, I also have Windows 7 and, more recently, OS X (see here) so, I know that embedded Flash works in Firefox on other OSes. However, it was really bugging me out. I'm assuming this bug is in the 64-bit version. If this is not the case, let me know.
It's not like my Flash player totally didn't work. For example, if I was on YouTube's main site, I could play a video just fine. But, if you embedded that same video on another page on a different site, I couldn't play it at all in Karmic.
I finally got fed up and hit Google to find an answer. I came across this bug report and it all made sense. This issue isn't Flash player at all. The culprit appears to be Compiz. If you are not familiar with Compiz, it is a desktop effects engine that allows you to have all types of cool effects on your desktop (wobbly windows, a rotating desktop, window preview,application switchers, etc). For me, it's one of the first things I set up when installing a Linux distro because, in addition to it being eyecandy, I find it useful.
However, it appears that, at least for now, it breaks embedded Flash in Karmic. So, if you decide you'd rather have the ability to view embedded video than have cool desktop effects, you'll need to turn off Compiz. You can accomplish this in one of three ways, ranging from extreme to mildly inconvenient.
- Use Synaptic or apt-get to remove Compiz from your system (extreme and not necessary)
- Go to "System->Preferences->Appearance->Visual Effects" and set them to "None" (not extreme but annoying should you want to turn Compiz on and off).
- Install "fusion-icon" using Synaptic or apt-get. You can use this to quickly switch Compiz off and on.
- Get rid of the Flash plugin installed by Ubuntu and download your own. (My preference)
If you select option #3, you can to an Alt-F2 and type in fusion-icon to run it. From there, you can right-click on the icon and go to "Select window manager". If you are using Gnome (the Ubuntu default desktop environment), you just select "Metacity" to turn off Compiz and, of course select "Compiz" to turn it back on. Also, to start fusion-icon when you log in, you can go to System->Preferences->Startup Applications and add fusion-icon to the list of programs to run at when you log in.
However, if you want the best of both worlds, use my preference, option #4. What you'll want to do is to remove the package flashplugin-installer (it used to also be called flashplugin-nonfree). Once it is removed, you'll want to get the alpha version of the 64-bit Flash plugin for Linux (you can download it here). The file is in tar.gz format so if you do a tar xzvf on the file (example: tar xzvf libflashplayer-10.0.32.18.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz), you will get a file called libflashplayer.so in the same directory that you tar.gz file resides. In Ubuntu, you can do a sudo cp <enter directory containing file>/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins to copy the flash player file from where it was extracted to the plugins directory for Firefox. Close down your browser and relaunch it. You should now be able to have Compiz running and view embedded Flash videos.
Hopefully, Ubuntu (and/or Compiz) will release a fix for this soon. In the meantime, I hope this workaround helps.
