Monday, June 21, 2010

64-bit Flash for Linux dropped as Adobe preps next version

I thought Adobe said that flash was available for ALL platforms. KISS MY ASS Adobe. Death to Flash

64-bit Flash for Linux dropped as Adobe preps next version: "



Adobe has discontinued its experimental 64-bit Flash player for Linux, citing the need for significant architectural changes to the software. The company assures users that the project hasn't been abandoned.



When the 64-bit plugin was initially made available for testing purposes through an Adobe Labs project in 2008, the company promised that it would deliver full 64-bit support for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X in the next major version of Flash. Two years later, we are still waiting. In its statement about the termination of the current 64-bit Linux plugin, Adobe reaffirmed its commitment to eventually achieve full 64-bit support across all three operating systems.



'We are fully committed to bringing native 64-bit Flash Player for the desktop by providing native support for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux 64-bit platforms in an upcoming major release of Flash Player,' the company wrote. 'We intend to provide more regular update information on our progress as we continue our work on 64-bit versions of Flash Player.'



It's likely that the push for 64-bit compatibility took a back seat while the company focused on improving support for mobile computing products. Flash's notoriously poor performance and excessive energy consumption have kept it from making inroads on handheld devices. Adobe claims that the new 10.1 version, which was released last week, will address these long-standing problems.



Mozilla recently started providing experimental 64-bit Firefox builds for Mac OS X and Linux, but these do not currently support 32-bit plugins. Most modern 64-bit Linux distributions already ship native 64-bit browser builds and use nspluginwrapper to support the 32-bit Flash player.



It's not clear exactly when Adobe will fulfill its promise of cross-platform 64-bit support. We're starting to wonder if it will be sometime around the official release of the HTML5-based Duke Nukem Forever.




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Wednesday, May 12, 2010

LTSP Cluster with Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx

When Lucid Lynx came out I downloaded the ISO and started playing with it on a VM. First impression is that it looks way different than previous versions, and very polished. While I was reading LTSP documentation and looking through the available packages for Lucid, I came across a package called LTSP-Cluster. This package has been in the works for some time now and it should be the way to go if you have a lot of thin clients in your organization.

The idea is that there is a root server that is used to give out DHCP and the image of the thin client. On the root server, you install also the load balancer and cluster control. Then you keep adding application servers that will be used by the thin clients to run their desktop on. What I did after much trial and error, I configured first the root server to be an LDAP client and NFS client for the /homes. That did not work, so I configured the application server to as LDAP client and NFS client. That seemed to do the trick.

I am attaching an image of the setup that I used. All this was done in VMs, so the root server, application server and thin client were installed and tested in VirtualBox in my iMac. When I roll out the hardware solution, I will post a guide of how I did it exactly.

The ubuntu guide (HowTo) is not complete and there are several steps missing. I will include how to configure Lucid as an LDAP client and NFS server as well.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Apple VS Adobe

I am certainly not an Apple Fanboy but I must say that I applaud the latest move from Apple to restrict API access to a number of applications. Basically, they are trying to limit Flash.
3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).


Good for them. Of course you have the hardcore flash developers that are criticizing Apple and threatening that they will stop development on the iPhone and iPad and go to Android. Who cares?

This guy says in the last two paragraphs that he will open source his development and then he goes on to say:
We are at the beginning of a significant change in the industry, and I believe that ultimately open platforms will win out over the type of closed, locked down platform that Apple is trying to create. I am excited about Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR 2.0 and all of the opportunities that they will make available to Flash developers across multiple platforms (desktop, Android, Palm, Windows Phone 7, RIM, etc…).


REALLY??? In the list of platforms there I don't see Linux specifically and maybe that is because Adobe does not give a crap about it. I do see desktop but most probably that only includes the fully supported Windows.

Someone could argue that Apple is promoting HTML5 which is the true open platform and that is where I want to believe that we are headed in the future. Someone could also argue that Apple just wants to stop their App Store from pouring over to Android but it is a for profit company and they are allowed to do that.

How the times change. Flash could not work on the Linux platform and you had to do a million hacks to get it to work especially on 64bit architectures and now this developer says he will only develop for the linux based Android.

I really hope I get to see the end of Flash.

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