Troubles with Flash player

Previous: Static from the speakers

I had been having a lot of trouble with the Flash player plugin for Firefox on Ubuntu. When I first switched to Ubuntu, there was no Flash plugin for 64-bit Linux in general release. After a while, they published an "alpha" version, and it appeared to work. But after the latest Firefox upgrade, YouTube videos did not play and no error message was displayed to indicate any problems with the plugin.

A post on launchpad.net suggested using any of the following Firefox plugins:

• MPlayer (package name mozilla-mplayer)
• Totem (package name totem-mozilla)
• VLC (package name mozilla-plugin-vlc)

I've noticed that MPlayer, which came bundled with Ubuntu, appears to play every kind of media file I've got with no difficulty, so I decided to try the MPlayer plugin. I installed it with

sudo apt-get install mozilla-mplayer

and restarted Firefox. Absolutely no problems. This is the way to go, rather than the Flash plugin.

That is, it's the way to go when it works. I haven't investigated the cause, but sometimes Firefox doesn't seem to know it ought to launch the MPlayer plugin. I suspect it has to do with the way the HTML is written on some sites. The observed behavior appears to be: When the page checks for the existence of the Flash plugin so that it can initiate a download for clients that don't have it installed, it finds a plugin associated with Flash video so it doesn't prompt for the download, but it also doesn't know how to invoke the MPlayer plugin, so you end up with nothing.

I've found that if I download the video manually, it will play just fine with MPlayer. Another workaround is to launch Opera and view the video with the "standard" Flash player in Opera. That seems to work without any problems.

I don't intend to invest much personal time on this problem. Based on what I've seen, my guess is that it boils down to a problem in the 64-bit version of Flash player for Firefox. When looking for answers I found a CNET article about the Firefox Flash plugin that suggests there has been a history of problems with that plugin ever since it was first introduced.

Next: Firefox addon toolbar buttons not displayed

Static from the speakers

Previous: Another reason to like Ubuntu

After a series of software updates, I noticed that the speakers were emitting static instead of clean sound whenever there was audio output. I did a net search on the keywords "ubuntu audio static" and immediately found this resource: http://beyondteck.blogspot.com/2009/04/ubuntu-audio-does-not-work-static-sound.html.

The problem description and the solution were exactly what I needed. Apparently, one of the software updates had modified my audio settings, for reasons unknown. After adjusting them, everything worked properly again.

Next: Troubles with the Flash player

Another reason to like Ubuntu

Previous: UMLet install

Ubuntu provides automated updates much as Microsoft and Apple do for their operating systems. I recently accepted an updated kernel, and afterwards I noticed some rendering problems on the Gnome desktop. A quick net search didn't reveal any fixes, probably because the problem is so fresh.

I rebooted Ubuntu and selected the previous kernel build from the boot menu. It works just fine now.

I really appreciate the boot process that allows you to drop back to a previous kernel build in such a simple and painless way. Now I won't have to cope with that problem while waiting for the fix to be published.

I find this much easier than the procedures for recovering a previously-working version of Microsoft Windows or Apple OS X. Thanks, Ubuntu team!

Next: Static from the speakers

UMLet install

Previous: Freemind install

I found a useful UML modeling tool that's suitable for agile modeling, called UMLet. I wrote my opinions about it on my Effective Software Development blog, and I won't repeat them here. This entry is just about how I installed it on Ubuntu Linux.

First I downloaded the archive from the UMLet site at http://www.umlet.com. I unzipped the archive for the standalone version of UMLet into /home/umlet.

To make it easier to start UMLet, I defined an alias in .bash_aliases as follows:

alias umlet='java -jar ~/umlet/UMLet/umlet.jar'

Then I created a desktop file for UMLet and saved it in /usr/share/applications as umlet.desktop. The contents are:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=UMLet
Comment=UML diagramming tool
Exec=umlet
Icon=uml_icon.png
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=GNOME;Application;Development;
StartupNotify=true

The desktop definition makes UMLet appear in the Applications -> Programming menu in the Gnome desktop. The icon file referenced in the desktop file is just an icon I found on the net somewhere that reminds me of UML. UMLet doesn't have its own icon.

Next: Another reason to like Ubuntu

Freemind install

Previous: Google Earth install

Downloaded Freemind from Sourceforge and unpacked the distro in my home directory.

Downloaded the Freemind icon by Christian Foltin from this Wordpress blog, whose owner does not make it easy to identify him/her, so I don't know whom to thank for making it available. Copied the icon to /usr/share/pixmaps and named it freemind.png.

Created a desktop file in /usr/share/applications named freemind.desktop with the following contents:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Freemind
Comment=Mind mapping tool
Exec=/home/dave/freemind/freemind.sh
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Icon=freemind.png
StartupNotify=true
Categories=Office;

Freemind now appears in the Applications -> Office menu.

Next: UMLet install