DSL Tips and Tricks :: Fixing flash player text problems

Some people aren't able to see certain text or text box entries in the macromedia flash player for Firefox. After playing with it a couple of days, I thought I'd write down what I did....

Note: this does end up eating a fair amount of RAM, so if you have a low RAM system, I can't guarantee it'll work. This is only tested on 256mb RAM using Live CD v 3.0.1. The unionfs .unc extensions work wonderfully well to reduce your RAM usage! (if booting from 3.0.1, don't forget to use the boot parameter 'dsl unionfs' to enable the unionfs before using the .unc extensions)

1. Install the flashplayer from the macromedia/abode website.

2. Locate and download from the Debian stable packages, gsfonts and gsfonts-x11 (deb packages)

3. Enable the apt extension (dsl-dpkg.dsl)

4. Install the gsfonts packages:

Code Sample

sudo dpkg -i --force-depends /path/to/gsfonts*.deb

This should install the gsfonts and gsfonts-x11 packages.

5. Download/enable the XFree86 extension (I recommend XFree86.unc) and setup the /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file for your hardware. I was able to use the config file for my ATI graphics driver in the /home/dsl/XFree86-config-files directory with the exception of changing the Input Device section for my USB mouse as follows:

Code Sample

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "USB Mice"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Buttons" "5"
EndSection

We also need to add the font path for the gsfonts into our XFree86 config file. Based on the default 3.0.1 Live CD + gsfonts, mine looks like:

Code Sample

Section "Files"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/type1/gsfonts"
EndSection

Change your ~/.xserverrc to read:

Code Sample

exec /usr/X11R6/bin/XFree86 -nolisten tcp

Now do a ctrl-alt-backspace to kill your X server. Then type startx & at the tty prompt and (hopefully) you should boot up into XFree86!

6. Now, hopefully you can open up Firefox and have nice pretty fonts to look at and working fonts in Flash!

7. To enable all this on boot, I added the following to the /opt/bootlocal.sh:

Code Sample

mount /dev/sda1
mydsl-load /mnt/sda1/dsl/gtk2-0705.unc #for Firefox-1.5.0.4.uci
mydsl-load /mnt/sda1/dsl/dsl-dpkg.dsl #apt-get and dpkg
mydsl-load /mnt/sda1/dsl/gnu-utils.unc #Just because (not req)
mydsl-load /mnt/sda1/dsl/firefox-1.5.0.4.uci #Keep it up-to-date!
mydsl-load /mnt/sda1/dsl/XFree86.unc #XFree86
dpkg -i --force-depends /mnt/sda1/dsl/gsfonts-x11_0.17_all.deb
dpkg -i --force-depends /mnt/sda1/dsl/gsfonts-8.14+v8.11+urw-0.2_all.deb

Now, add '/etc/X11/XF86Config-4' to ~/.filetool.lst so it saves your XFree86 configuration.

The two gsfonts packages actually won't load during boot, so I still have to do them manually afterwards. Haven't figured out how to fix that yet.....

7. One cavaet: When I open the comcast.net homepage and log in, it uses a lot of flash and flash fonts. It seemed to only show the fonts inconsistently, typically only when I first opened the browser up, but not again after that. So there's still an issue somewhere, but it seemed to work with the other flash sites that I had trouble with.

Good luck, and let me know if I forgot anything, or if there's a better way of doing something!!

Scott

***Edit 7/23/06***

Thank you for the tip about installing the Abiword extension. That's much easier!! Go figure....oh well. You still need to get XFree86 working for your video card/monitor combo in order for the Flashplayer text fonts to show up. Just disregard any references above to installing the gsfonts packages.

Scott

i've found i can get nice font's in firefox just from installing the abiword.dsl. i guessing it brings extra fonts with it.

Is this cos flash uses type1 fonts?
Can it be done by just installing xfs (pcf) fonts?

xfs is a font server, it dosen't have fonts.

sorry, i meant those fonts suitable for xfs
instead of type1 (which i guess is xft/xfree86).

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