Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Flash player for Firefox libnspr4-dev dependency

Previous:

Ran into a dependency problem with Ubuntu Karmic 9.10: Adobe Flash player plugin for Firefox depends on package libnspr4-dev, which apparently is problematic for one reason or another. I got the player to install by doing the following:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libnspr4-dev
Without doing the update first, the install warned that it would remove several packages, including Firefox itself. Not very convenient.

Next: Installing Wubi on HP Pavilion notebook

6 comments:

  1. i still get the message
    "E:the package adobe-flashplugin needs to be reinstalled.but i can't find an archive for it"

    i have tried absoultely friggin everythinng and have wasted two days trying to fix it but to no avail.I've scowered forum apon forum trying to fix this yet still nothing.

    and YES i've tried the synaptic package manager and NO it doesn't work.

    alot of these forums suggest coding vr/lib/dpkg/info but it says i have no such file or directory.

    for everyone: i am new to ubuntu and linux but i've been learning a bit these past couple of days but please keep it simple

    thanks

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  2. conclusion: ubuntu still sucks for the average user, because of this ridiculous "free" doctrine.
    the installer should do the basic install, as it does now, and then ask the question:
    are you a geek and want to spend days browsing forums y/n

    if Y, quit and reboot

    if N, install flashplayer and popular
    non-free drivers and codecs

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  3. Hi Shawn,

    Sorry to hear about your frustration. I'm new to Linux, too, and I don't have an answer. On my primary work machine, I reinstalled Ubuntu 9.04 and things are working fine there. I came to the conclusion that 9.10 isn't quite ready for prime time. Maybe as a general rule it's best to stick to the most recent stable release. I'm planning to do that until I've learned more about Linux.

    Good luck!
    Dave

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  4. Hi Art,

    I think you make an important point. I won't pretend to speak for "the average user," but I will reiterate something I mentioned earlier in this blog: When choosing a system for your own personal computer, you've got to keep in mind your personal tolerance for tinkering, along with whatever other decision points are important to you.

    All operating systems require some amount of tinkering at some level. You can trade money for time by buying a computer that has an operating system pre-installed for you, or you can trade time for money and work out the kinks on your own. I'm not making light of this - your time is valuable.

    The same trade-off apples to Windows, OS X, and assorted flavors of Unix and Linux - you can buy machines with any of those operating systems pre-installed, or you can obtain the hardware and the operating system separately. The issue is not unique to Linux and is not about "geeks." It's just a question of whether you're willing to look for hardware drivers and so forth, or you'd rather have someone do it for you.

    In my experience, Mac OS X requires the least amount of tinkering of all the popular systems. If tinkering is your personal pain point, you might consider trading money for time and going for a Mac with OS X already installed. It will work right out of the box, without the Windows annoyances or the Linux tinkering.

    FWIW, the reason I switched from Mac to Linux is total cost of ownership of the hardware: Price tag is about triple, and reliable lifetime of the box is about half that of good-quality commodity machines, so total cost of ownership is about 6x. For that amount of money, I'll spend a few minutes on a forum occasionally. So, TCO was my pain point. If tinkering is your pain point, you might make a different choice. It's all good.

    Cheers,
    Dave

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  5. This worked for me - thanks for the help

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  6. é engraçado que executando do Live CD dá pra instalar sem complicações, de qualquer jeito obrigado pela iniciativa de postar no blog e talz, funcionou aqui!

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