Mozilla default plugin


Forum: Multimedia
Topic: Mozilla default plugin
started by: dougp

Posted by dougp on Aug. 03 2007,07:33
I've seen a lot of posts (and commented in a few myself) regarding the difficulties alot of us seem to have with the manual install of java and/or flashplayer. I've often wondered why DSL couldn't simply use the autoinstaller that virually every other OS I've known uses: i.e. when you surf to a page that needs flash or java, a message pops up: click here to install missing plugins - no fuss, no muss. When I finally succeeded in installing java and flashplayer I typed about:plugins in the Firefox location bar to confirm that they were installed and enabled and I saw this:
Default plugin
File name: libnullplugin.so
"The default plugin handles plugin data for mimetypes and extensions that are not specified and facilitates downloading of new plugins."
Mime type: *  Description: All types  Suffixes: *  Enabled: No
The official Firefox help site seemed to say it was only needed for Mozilla, but then I found this: < Chris Ilias' Blog >> The Mozilla Default Plugin >
Could this be the missing link that "facilitates the downloading of new plugins."? Should it be enabled in Firefox config file?

Posted by mikshaw on Aug. 03 2007,10:29
I can't address Java since I don't know jack about it, but you seem to be overlooking one important detail about auto-installing Flash in DSL: It no longer installs a DSL compatible version of Flash.  Since the release of Flash 9, its requirements include a Gtk2 browser and ALSA for audio, neither of which is part of DSL.
Posted by curaga on Aug. 03 2007,13:23
The popup "install plugin" is disabled because DSL is mainly a livecd, readonly.
There would be no use in that, plus the version FF 1.0.6 wants to fetch might be kinda old

Posted by stupid_idiot on Aug. 03 2007,13:37
Also:
If you use Firefox's auto-install, then Java, for example, is installed into a standard location like /usr/local/jre. Java is huge, so it's a burden on the ramdisk. If you use a mountable cloop extension like 'MyDSL->UCI->jre1_5_0.uci', you can avoid this problem.

Sun JRE comes with a file called 'jre/plugins/libjavaplugin.so'. Installation for Firefox is as simple as making a symlink to this file in any of the Firefox 'plugins/' directories. There are 2 such directories - The system-wide one (/usr/local/firefox/plugins) and the user-specific one (/home/dsl/.mozilla/firefox/[random-string-of-eight-chars].default/plugins).
So, for example:
Code Sample
ln -s [prefix]/jre/plugins/libjavaplugin.so /home/dsl/.mozilla/firefox/abcdef99.default/plugins

Posted by jpeters on Aug. 04 2007,18:03
Quote (mikshaw @ Aug. 03 2007,06:29)
I can't address Java since I don't know jack about it, but you seem to be overlooking one important detail about auto-installing Flash in DSL: It no longer installs a DSL compatible version of Flash.  Since the release of Flash 9, its requirements include a Gtk2 browser and ALSA for audio, neither of which is part of DSL.

Any success with FF GTK2-1.0.4 and Alsa?

Edit:  Okay...I'll answer this then..."well, uh, no, but..aw shucks...can't seem to get it to stop crashing and all, but,, gee......should work...l mean, given the requirements and all.....but. let's see now...."

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