Finally...

If you've been having too much of this while running Firefox on a 64-bit Linux system:


Image credit: I Can Has Cheezburger

you might be interested in Adobe's latest Flash player release. After years of saying "any day now", Adobe has finally released a 64-bit Flash player for Linux:

Adobe has been taking quite a bashing from Linux supporters of late. First, there was the issue of them dropping AIR for Linux and then came the bashing because of the lack of updates on the experimental 64-bit Flash Player for Linux.

Well, guess what! They have just released Flash Player 11 and it includes native 64-bit support for Linux as well. When they discontinued their experimental 64-bit Flash Player earlier this year, Adobe promised to release a 64-bit version of Flash Player for Linux when they release the next major version.

Adobe Releases Flash Player 11 – Finally Delivers 64-bit Flash Player For Linux

I added that link about Adobe's experimental 64-bit player.

Using this procedure, I was able to upgrade to the 64-bit player on my Ubuntu 10.04 system, and play this vitally important video:



So it appears that the procedure works on both Ubuntu's latest release and its latest long term service (LTS) release. What the article doesn't quite mention is that this is still a beta version, but I've been using the previous version on Fedora Linux for some time, and it's worked as well as the 32-bit version, which is not quite the same thing as saying it's just fine.

Checking Adobe's download page, there is also a 64-bit version of the player for Windows and Macs. I cannot testify to the quality of either, of course.

There are at least a few folks who read this blog who use Linux, so I thought I'd pass this on.