How to Install Adobe Flash 11 (beta) in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal?

Adobe through the world famous software suits, especially the Flash player, they're certainly controlling the web for good or worse :). Few hours ago they released the next major version of the upcoming version of the Flash player 11!. But before anyone gets excited, this is still in beta stage so... use it at your own risk :/.

So unlike in the past, where 10.x version updates, this is a new number thus it brings few major improvements :) to the player and the usual users but importantly, since from an advanced web developer's point of view its more than a "player", the version 11 does bring some features such as Incubator 3D and 64-bit support! into the beta release as well.

Other main features...

*. G 7.111 audio codec/compression technology (lossless compression codec) support for apps that uses the codec and the player, of course. 

*. H.264/AVC streaming writer encoding support for local files.

*. Sending large file through FTP clients support.

*. If you have an Adobe AIR powered TV, then the flash player 11 has the ability to send HD (7.1 channel) audio signals directly to it.

*. Victor graphic printing support for GNU/Linux for the first time!.

*. Cryptographic random number generator and many other new features are included in this release.

The installation of Adobe Flash in GNU/Linux is pretty easy actually but some of the things may change according to your desktop, etc.

You can install Adobe Flash 11 beta in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal (should work in 10.10/10.04 and 11.10) by using the below procedure.

If you use the 64-bit version of the Ubuntu OS, then you can install this much easily thanks to a dedicated PPA. So only for 64-bit versions, use the below procedure.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sevenmachines/flash

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install flashplugin64-installer

1. But for the 32-bit users (including me) first download the compressed package from here and extract the content. 

2. Once extracted, locate a file called "libflashplayer.so". Now, make sure your hidden files are showing in the Nautilus file manager if you use Gnome or Unity desktop (or whatever the desktop/file manager that you use) and locate a folder called ".mozilla".

You can also use the "Ctrl + H" keyboard shortcut for showing hidden files in Nautilus...

3. Once you're inside this folder you should see another folder called "plugins".

This may not be here for some (say in the past you've installed the flash-player using apt-get), then just create a folder using that name manually.

4. Now simply copy and paste the above mentioned file ("libflashplayer.so") to this folder. That's it.

This is all you have to do if you want to use the Adobe flash player 11 beta with web browsers such as Firefox, Chrome and Chromium.

But if you want to access other settings such as cleaning advanced Flash player cache, network settings, update settings, etc then, you'll have to manually put copy and paste the contents in the folder called "usr" from the extracted archive in the respective order of your GNU/Linux root partition.

Again this is not a necessity if you want to use the latest flash player with your web browser. Good luck.