UPDATE (04/15/2008):  Please read the edit at the bottom of this post.

ORIGINAL POST:

If you’re searching for an answer to why Flash can no longer be installed in your Kubuntu or Ubuntu installation, look no further. The short answer: Adobe updated to a new version of Flash, which broke the Ubuntu package. Discussion has been fast and furious on the bug report for this issue.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that it isn’t very difficult to fix. The other bad news is that Flash will remain broken in Konqueror for other reasons, so it’s Firefox or nothing for now.

First download the new version of Flash Player directly from Adobe. Save the file to your Desktop or somewhere convenient. You’ll want the .tar.gz version, as shown here.

Now you’ll need to remove all vestiges of the flashplugin-nonfree package from your system.

1. Close all Firefox/Konqueror instances.
2. Open a Konsole (K Menu > System > Konsole) and enter:

   sudo apt-get remove flashplugin-nonfree

3. Navigate to where you saved the new Flash installer:

   cd ~/Desktop

4. Extract the installer:

   tar xzf install_flash_player_9_linux.tar.gz

5. Change into the newly-created directory where the installation files are located:

   cd install_flash_player_9_linux

6. At this point you have a decision to make. If you want all users on your system to be able to use Flash Player, then proceed exactly as I describe here. If you want only your own account to be able to use Flash, then leave out the word “sudo” from the following step.
7. I want everyone to be able to use Flash, so I type (note the period in the command):

   sudo ./flashplayer_installer

8. Follow the onscreen prompts until you are asked where to install the player. The default is “/usr/lib/mozilla” but that’s wrong for your Kubuntu/Ubuntu system. You should enter:

   /usr/lib/firefox

9. Answer “y” to proceed with the installation, then “n” for another installation.
10. Close the Konsole by entering:

    exit

Congratulations! You have the latest and greatest Flash Player running on your system. To verify, open Firefox and enter about:plugins in the address bar. You should see something like this somewhere in the listing:

Shockwave Flash

File name: libflashplayer.so

Shockwave Flash 9.0 r115

Normally you would be finished at this point, but the new version of Flash presents a problem in Kubuntu. I discovered that navigating to some flash sites, mostly video-enabled sites such as YouTube, would freeze Firefox completely. Searching the Ubuntu Forums led me to the discovery that it’s a sound issue. Fortunately, the fix is easy.

1. Open System Settings from the K Menu.
   
2. Under Computer Administration, open Sound System.
   
3. Click the Hardware tab, then locate Select the audio device. It will probably be set to Autodetect.
   
4. Change the audio device to Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (a.k.a. ALSA) and click the Apply button.
   
5. Close System Settings and enjoy your new and better Flash!

Some people in the Ubuntu Forums also reported that they still had problems, and changing the device to Open Sound System (OSS) instead of ALSA worked.

Now that I have the new version of Flash, was it worth the change? Absolutely. Flash on Linux always seemed somewhat sluggish on Kubuntu, but now it seems to run at full speed, compared with a Windows installation. The other big annoyance with Flash on Linux was that mutiple layers of Flash objects — think the ubiquitous drop-down menus on websites here — would refuse to align properly, so they never worked. That problem seems to be fixed.

Kudos to Adobe for showing a commitment to ensure their Flash product continues to work properly on Linux. Just one request for the next update: could you please give the various Linux distros a heads-up so their installers don’t break and inconvenience all the users? Thanks.

Edit (04/15/2008): Reading the original bug report, it appears that the Flash problem has been fixed in Gutsy (7.10) and Hardy (8.04, to be released next week).  If you’re still having problems with Flash, please try using the official Flash installation methods first, before you try the workaround above.

• First, you’ll likely need to remove your current Flash installation using apt-get remove flashplugin-nonfree or by removing the package flashplugin-nonfree in Adept.  If you have already installed Flash manually using the above instructions, you may need to manually remove Flash, as the Kubuntu package management system won’t know what the heck to do with the Adobe files.
• Now update your package repositories by clicking Fetch Updates in Adept or using apt-get update.
• Finally, install Flash again, either using apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree or installing the flashplugin-nonfree package in Adept.