Showing posts with label fresh plugin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fresh plugin. Show all posts
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Install Fresh Player Plugin In Ubuntu Via PPA (Pepper Flash Wrapper For Firefox)
Not so long ago I was telling you about Fresh Player Plugin, a new wrapper that's currently in alpha, which allows Linux users to use Pepper Flash (which is bundled with Google Chrome) in Firefox and other NPAPI-compatible web browsers.
Well, in just over a week, Fresh Player Plugin evolved a lot and in my test, I actually didn't encounter any major issues: the sound works, video playback works with YouTube and other websites, full-screen videos work with multi-monitor setups, etc. So I've decided to upload Fresh Player Plugin to the main failsdownloads PPA so you can test it easily and stay up to date with the latest code from GIT.
As a reminder, the latest Adobe Flash Player versions are available on Linux only through Google Chrome, while other browsers are stuck with version 11.2.
The Adobe Flash Player plugin that's bundled with Google Chrome is in the form of a PPAPI (or Pepper Plugin API) plugin and Mozilla isn't interested in adding support for it.
That's why Rinat Ibragimov decided to create this wrapper so Firefox users can use the latest Pepper Flash from Google Chrome.
Also, the Fresh Player Plugin page has an important security note that you should read: "[...] the API itself doesn't make any sandboxing, it only allows sandboxed implementations. This particular implementation doesn't implement any sandbox. That means that if any malicious code breaks through plugin security, there are no additional barriers".
Also, the Fresh Player Plugin page has an important security note that you should read: "[...] the API itself doesn't make any sandboxing, it only allows sandboxed implementations. This particular implementation doesn't implement any sandbox. That means that if any malicious code breaks through plugin security, there are no additional barriers".
Install Fresh Player Plugin in Ubuntu via PPA
Important notes:
- Fresh Player Plugin is installed under /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ and so it works with Firefox but it may not work with other NPAPI-compatible browsers. If you want to use it with some other web browser, you're on your own;
- the plugin is still in early alpha stages and even though in my test it seems that most stuff works, it may not work for you. Also, it probably only works with a limited number of websites right now. You should only install it for testing purposes for now!
1. Install Fresh Player Plugin in Ubuntu (via PPA), by using the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/failsdownloads
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install freshplayerplugin2. Fresh Player Plugin is just a wrapper for libpepflashplayer.so so it needs this file which is bundled with Google Chrome. The easiest way to get this file is to simply install Google Chrome Stable - download it from here, then install it (should also work with Chrome Beta and Unstable). That's it!
There are other ways of getting libpepflashplayer.so: via the installer available in the official Ubuntu 14.04+ repositories and via the Pepper Flash PPA which is also available for older Ubuntu versions - once installed, then you'll need to create a symbolic link for Pepper Flash to /opt/google/chrome/PepperFlash/libpepflashplayer.so or see step 3 for how to change the path to it.
Here you'll find an example Fresh Player Plugin configuration - to use it, save this file, rename it to "freshwrapper.conf" and copy it under ~/.config/
Use this configuration file to change the path to libpepflashplayer.so or to tweak the sound buffer if you have shuttering sound.
The configuration options available in this file are pretty self-explanatory - you can configure the lower and higher bound for the audio buffer size, enable/disable accelerated rendering ("enable_3d"), change the device scale (useful for high DPI screens), set the fullscreen width or height if you have issues with this, change the path to libpepflashplayer.so along with command line arguments (like enabling hardware video decoding).
To report bugs or help with its development, see the Fresh Player Plugin GitHub page.
Fresh Player Plugin 0.2.4 Released With Accelerated Rendering Enabled By Default, High DPI Support
Version 0.2.4 of the Fresh Player Plugin was released recently, bringing some important changes, such as accelerated rendering enabled by default, high DPI support and more.
Fresh Player Plugin is a wrapper that allows Linux users to use Pepper Flash from Google Chrome in Firefox and other NPAPI-compatible browsers.
The plugin was developed because on Linux, Flash Player is only updated for Google Chrome (it comes bundled with it), while other browsers, such as Firefox, are stuck with an old Adobe Flash Player version: 11.2.
Fresh Player Plugin 0.2.4 brings the following improvements:
- 3d (accelerated rendering) is now enabled by default;
- IMEs support (ibus and fcitx were tested);
- mouse wheel events support;
- screen saver inhibition fixes;
- playing audio through JACK;
- high DPI screens support via device_scale parameter.
The most important change in this release is default-enabled accelerated rendering (which should bring improved performance), which means this feature is now considered stable enough for general use. However, it's important to mention that if accelerated rendering is causing issues on your system, you can disable it by editing the freshwrapper.conf file, changing the "enable_3d" value from 1 to 0 and then restarting your browser.
To make use of the newly added HiDPI support, you'll need to look for the "device_scale" option in the freshwrapper.conf file and change it to suit your needs.
Getting Fresh Player Plugin
If you use Ubuntu / Linux Mint and derivatives, you can install Fresh Player Plugin by using the main failsdownloads PPA. For installation and configuration instruction, see: Install Fresh Player Plugin In Ubuntu Via PPA (Pepper Flash Wrapper For Firefox)
Arch Linux users can install the latest Fresh Player Plugin (Git) via AUR.
For other Linux distributions, you'll have to compile it from source.
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Fresh Player Plugin: Pepper Flash Wrapper For Firefox And Other NPAPI-Compatible Browsers
Fresh Player Plugin is a new (alpha!) wrapper that allows Linux users to use Pepper Flash from Google Chrome in Firefox, Opera and other NPAPI-compatible browsers.
As you probably know, the latest Adobe Flash Player versions are available on Linux only through Google Chrome, while other browsers are stuck with version 11.2.
The Adobe Flash Player plugin that's bundled with Google Chrome is in the form of a PPAPI (or Pepper Plugin API) plugin and Mozilla isn't interested in adding support for it.
For this reason, Rinat Ibragimov (who's also behind libvdpau-va-gl, a VDPAU driver that, among others, brings Adobe Flash Player hardware acceleration on Intel Graphics) has started working on a Pepper Flash NPAPI wrapper which aims to bring Google Chrome's Pepper Flash to Firefox, Opera, etc., called Fresh Player Plugin.
Fresh Player Plugin is in early alpha and still needs work! Update: In my test with the latest Fresh Player Plugin from GIT, both YouTube and DailyMotion videos worked (Adblock has to be disabled or else the videos won't start playing on YouTube) but the sound was very choppy (and that's a PulseAudio issue which Rinat wasn't able to fix yet).
So it can't really replace Adobe Flash for Firefox users yet but still, the project is very promising:
So it can't really replace Adobe Flash for Firefox users yet but still, the project is very promising:
If you can help with its development, check out the Fresh Player Plugin GitHub page.
It's also worth mentioning, in case you didn't know, that Mozilla is working on its own Flash replacement: Shumway, which is open source and uses HTML5. But, like the new Fresh Player Plugin, Shumway needs a lot of work until it can fully replace Adobe Flash too.
Test Pepper Flash Plugin
Currently, to test Fresh Player Plugin (remember, it's in early development stages and its functionality is limited; it doesn't work with many websites, including YouTube!) you must build it from source. The instructions below are a rough guide on how to compile it in Ubuntu but it doesn't guarantee it will work so unless you have experience with building packages from source, I suggest you wait until Pepper Flash Plugin becomes more stable, then I'll upload it to a PPA.
1. Install the required dependencies:
sudo apt-get install build-essential git cmake pkg-config libglib2.0-dev libasound2-dev libx11-dev libgl1-mesa-dev liburiparser-dev libcairo2-dev libpango1.0-dev libpangocairo-1.0-0 libpangoft2-1.0-0 libfreetype6-dev libgtk2.0-dev libxinerama-dev libconfig-dev libevent-dev libegl1-mesa-dev libgles2-mesa-dev2. Build Fresh Player Plugin
cd
git clone https://github.com/i-rinat/freshplayerplugin.git
cd freshplayerplugin && mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make3. Once it's built, copy libfreshwrapper-pepperflash.so from the build folder to the browser plugin directory. For Firefox, copy it to /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/
4. Fresh Player Plugin is just a wrapper for Pepper Flash from Google Chrome so you'll need libpepflashplayer.so. The Pepper Flash path is hardcoded to /opt/google/chrome/PepperFlash/libpepflashplayer.so and to get libpepflashplayer.so under that location you'll have to do one of the following:
- install Google Chrome stable (that's it!); or
- if you're using Google Chrome unstable, create a symbolic link from /opt/google/chrome-unstable/PepperFlash to /opt/google/chrome/ ; or
- on Ubuntu, you can install Pepper Flash using 2 other ways: via the installer available in the official Ubuntu 14.04 repositories and via the Pepper Flash PPA - once installed, then you'll need to create a symbolic link for Pepper Flash to /opt/google/chrome/PepperFlash/libpepflashplayer.so
Reminder: Fresh Player plugin should only be used for testing purposes for now.
Update: you can now install Fresh Player Plugin in Ubuntu via PPA!
via reddit, thanks to BurningFox!
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Fresh Player Plugin Gets Hardware Accelerated Video Decoding Via VA-API And VDPAU
Fresh Player Plugin was updated recently with support for hardware accelerated video decoding via VA-API and VDPAU, along with video capture support (ALSA, JACK, PulseAudio) and other improvements.
Fresh Player Plugin is a wrapper that allows Linux users to use Pepper Flash from Google Chrome in Firefox and other NPAPI-compatible browsers. This is useful because the latest Flash Player is only available for Google Chrome (it comes bundled with it) on Linux, while other browsers, like Firefox, are stuck with an old Adobe Flash Player version (11.2).
Thanks to the new VA-API/VDPAU hardware accelerated video decoding available in the latest Fresh Player Plugin, Flash videos should use less CPU (because they'll be using the GPU).
Here's an example: with the same YouTube flash (you can use the HTML5 video player on YouTube, but this is for testing purposes) 1080p fullscreen video, I got a CPU usage of around 115% with Adobe Flash 11.2 without hardware accelerated video decoding and ~13% CPU usage using the latest Fresh Player plugin with accelerated video rendering (via VA-API) enabled:
 |
| Flash 11.2 (Firefox) without hardware acceleration |
 |
| Fresh Player Plugin (with Flash 18 from Google Chrome, used in Firefox) with hardware accelerated video decoding enabled (VA-API) |
Note that I edited the first screenshot: I manually added htop on top of the video (but what htop displays is real - it was running on my second monitor) because I couldn't get it to stay on top with Flash 11.2.
Fresh Player Plugin supports hardware accelerated video decoding via VA-API and VDPAU, under Ubuntu 15.04 and 14.10 only, because it requires a newer libav version, which is not available in the official Ubuntu 14.04 (and older) repositories. Also, this is disabled by default "due to possible whole system lock-ups on some hardware", so it might not work properly for everyone (but I didn't encounter any issues in my test).
cp /usr/share/doc/freshplayerplugin/freshwrapper.conf.example ~/.config/freshwrapper.confThen open ~/.config/freshwrapper.conf with a text editor, search for "enable_hwdec = 0" and change its value from "0" to "1". There are separate options for enabling/disabling VA-API and VDPAU too - look for "enable_vaapi" and "enable_vdpau" in the same file.
You'll also need to install the VA-API / VDPAU driver for this to work. For Intel graphics, you'll need to install the "i965-va-driver" package, for Nvidia you'll need "libvdpau1" and for AMD graphics (Catalyst older than 14.12) you'll have to install "xvba-va-driver" (XvBA-based backend for VA API - AMD fglrx implementation). And of course, you'll need the latest Fresh Player Plugin from GIT (available in the main failsdownloads PPA).
If you want to check if everything was configured properly, load a YouTube flash video, right click it, select "Stats for nerds" and the frame that shows up should say "accelerated video rendering, accelerated video decoding" (like in the second screenshot above).
If you want to check if everything was configured properly, load a YouTube flash video, right click it, select "Stats for nerds" and the frame that shows up should say "accelerated video rendering, accelerated video decoding" (like in the second screenshot above).
Note that I only tested this with an Intel graphics card / VA-API (and Ubuntu 15.04).
Install Fresh Player Plugin
If you use Ubuntu / Linux Mint and derivatives, you can install Fresh Player Plugin by using the main failsdownloads PPA. For installation and configuration instruction, see: Install Fresh Player Plugin In Ubuntu Via PPA (Pepper Flash Wrapper For Firefox)
Arch Linux users can install the latest Fresh Player Plugin (Git) via AUR.
For other Linux distributions, you'll have to compile it from source.
PPA Updates: Atraci 0.6.0, Atom 0.123.0, Brackets 0.42, GPaste 3.10.3 And 3.12.2, Minitube 2.2, Oracle JDK 7u67 And More
As you might have noticed, I was on holiday* until today and because of that, there were no new articles on failsdownloads and no updates for the failsdownloads PPAs. Today I updated the PPA packages for most applications that had a new release while I was away, and to speed things up, below you'll find a quick list with what was updated / what's new.
Notes:
- there are no installation instructions in the article for the apps below. Instead, you'll find links to articles explaining how to install those applications in Ubuntu / Linux Mint.
- as a reminder, only Ubuntu 14.04 and 12.04 are still supported by Canonical (and of course, 14.10, which is currently under development) / Linux Mint 17 Qiana and Linux Mint 13 Maya. Launchpad PPAs don't support other Ubuntu / Linux Mint releases any more.
That said, let's proceed with the updates.
Atom 0.123.0, an open source "hackable text editor for the 21st Century" developed by GitHub, which is currently in beta:
- The maximized state of the window is now properly restored on launch;
- The language-mustache package is now bundled by default;
- Added a button to the Incompatible Packages view that reloads Atom and rechecks all the installed packages for compatibility. This is also available from the command palette;
- Atom's Chrome version has been upgraded from 31 to 36;
- Atom's Node version has been upgraded from 0.11.10 to 0.11.13;
- Support for number pad keybindings have been removed. Number pad keys will now resolve to their equivalent keystroke as if they were pressed on the main keyboard area. You should remove the num- modifier from any keystrokes in your ~/.atom/keymap.cson file;
- Fixed an issue on Linux where tabs could not be dragged between windows;
- You can now delete a bracket and its matching pair at the same time using ctrl-backspace on Mac and alt-ctrl-backspace on Linux and Windows;
- ctrl-shift-Z is now mapped to core:redo on Linux;
- Atom now ships with a light version of the Base16 Tomorrow syntax theme;
- Added a bunch of new Go snippets;
- Many other new features and bug fixes, check the changelog below for details.
Changelog | Article on failsdownloads: Install Atom Text Editor In Ubuntu Via PPA [32bit + 64bit]
Atraci 0.6.0, a new open source music player which uses YouTube as a source:
- fixed YouTube decipher issues;
- added support for multimedia keys;
- shows featured playlist if you live in Taiwan & USA;
- added option to open song in YouTube;
- many bug fixes.
Changelog | Article on failsdownloads: Atraci: New YouTube-Based Music Player
Brackets 0.42, an open-source code editor for web design and development built on top of web technologies such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript:
- Theme support: Brackets now has built-in support for editor themes, and includes default light and dark themes. Additional themes can be installed via Extension Manager;
- Replace in Files: Check/Uncheck All Matches for a File: When doing a batch or multi-file replace, you can now check/uncheck the matches for an entire file;
- Change Language Mode: Change the language mode for an individual file by selecting the language from the dropdown menu in the status bar
- Turn off Code Hints: New preferences to disable all code hints or hints from an individual provider;
- Drag and Drop Installation of Extensions: Install extensions by dragging zip files onto the Extension Manager dialog.
Changelog | Article on failsdownloads: Install Brackets In Ubuntu Via PPA (Open Source Code Editor For HTML, CSS And JavaScript)
GPaste 3.12.2 (for GNOME 3.12 / Ubuntu 14.10 only) and 3.10.3 (for GNOME 3.10 / Ubuntu 14.04), a clipboard manager which was initially created for GNOME Shell, but which now also ships with an Ubuntu AppIndicator:
- Desktop files have been fixed;
- Fixes for the ubuntu app-indicator;
- Keybinding to mark an item as being a password;
- Misc bugfixes.
Changelog | Article on failsdownloads: Install GPaste In Ubuntu Via PPA (Native GNOME Shell Clipboard Manager)
Minitube 2.2, a native YouTube client for the desktop:
- Subscriptions context menu: Unsubscribe, Mark as Watched;
- Added --stop-after-this command line switch;
- Added Stop After This Video Unity & Gnome 3 action;
- Fixed painting errors when scrolling playlist on Linux;
- Fixed bug with dragging playlist items from the thumbnail;
- Fixed some videos not playing.
Changelog not available | Article on failsdownloads
Oracle JDK 7u67: according to the release notes, this update includes only a bug fix for a regression - java_arguments not accepted after update to 7u65.
Changelog | Article on failsdownloads: Install Oracle Java 7 in Ubuntu via PPA Repository
Y PPA Manager 2014.08.18: the search feature stopped working while I was on holiday due to a change in Launchpad.net's code. This issue was fixed with the update released today.
No changelog available | Article on failsdownloads
Other packages from the failsdownloads PPAs updated today include: FreshPlayer Plugin (Git pull), Tor Browser 3.6.4, KKEdit 0.2.2, Wimlib 1.7.1 and youtube-dl 2014.08.10.
* In case you're wondering why I didn't announce that I'm on holiday well, that's because I did that a while back and the website was filled with spam comments and also, the number of attempts to hack my online accounts increased considerably. That's why I stopped announcing it publicly. Sorry about that!
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Fresh Player Plugin Sees New Release (Pepper Flash Wrapper For Firefox)
As you probably know, the latest Adobe Flash Player is available on Linux only via Google Chrome (it's bundled with it) while other browsers such as Firefox are stuck with an old 11.2 version.
The Adobe Flash Player plugin that's bundled with Google Chrome is in the form of a PPAPI (or Pepper Plugin API) plugin and Mozilla isn't interested in adding support for it. Because of this, Rinat Ibragimov has developed Fresh Player Plugin, a wrapper that allows Linux users to use Pepper Flash from Google Chrome in Firefox and other NPAPI-compatible browsers.
A new Fresh Player Plugin version - 0.2.2 -, has just been released, bringing various improvements and new features:
- implement Flash DRM interface. (Desktop PepperFlash doesn't use it, you need one from ChromeOS);
- fix malfunctioning nested submenus;
- implement file chooser dialog;
- fullscreen fixes, stop crashing on Alt-F4;
- rework ALSA code, add optional PulseAudio support;
- implement screen saver inhibition interface;
- use GLX to create GL context, for both GL and GLES;
- fix hangs caused by wrong nested message loop handling;
- add quiet config option to decrease amount of output;
- fix Referer bug;
The most important change in this release is obviously the implementation of Flash DRM interface however, Pepper Flash that's bundled with Google Chrome has the DRM-related code disabled on Linux so to use this, you need to extract Pepper Flash from Chrome OS, and that's a pretty tedious process (instructions available here).
Furthermore, to get the Flash DRM interface to work, you must add "enable_3d = 1" to the freshwrapper.conf file or else you'll get a black video, even on non-DRM content.
Here's a Flash DRM test screenshot with the latest Fresh Player Plugin and Firefox, under Ubuntu 14.10:
Here's a Flash DRM test screenshot with the latest Fresh Player Plugin and Firefox, under Ubuntu 14.10:
I should also mention that I've been using Fresh Player Plugin with Firefox for months, and pretty much everything works, though I only use a few Flash websites.
Note that according to its GitHub page, Fresh Player Plugin "mostly works, but some essential APIs are still to be implemented", so it may not work with some websites.
Note that according to its GitHub page, Fresh Player Plugin "mostly works, but some essential APIs are still to be implemented", so it may not work with some websites.
For more information about Fresh Player Plugin, bug reports, etc., see its GitHub page.
Getting Fresh Player Plugin
If you use Ubuntu / Linux Mint and derivatives, you can install Fresh Player Plugin by using the main failsdownloads PPA. For installation and configuration instruction, see: Install Fresh Player Plugin In Ubuntu Via PPA (Pepper Flash Wrapper For Firefox)
Arch Linux users can install the latest Fresh Player Plugin (Git) via AUR.
For other Linux distributions, you'll have to compile it from source.
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