Flash Player “Square”: 64-bit on Windows, OSX and Linux
Native 64-bit support is one of the most requested features for Flash Player so I’m sure this news is going to make a lot of people happy. Today we’re releasing a preview of Flash Player “Square” which includes native 64-bit support.
Today we’re making available a preview of Adobe Flash Player that we’re calling “Square.” This preview includes support for two new areas, namely enhanced support for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 Beta and native 64-bit support for all major desktop operating systems including Linux, Mac, and Windows.
This is obviously very exciting news but please keep in mind that this is a preview release.
We’ve found “Square” to be stable and ready for broad testing, but keep in mind this a sneak peek and not everything will be fully baked. Those using the previous 64-bit version of Flash Player for Linux should find this new version even faster and more stable. If you encounter any issues, I’d encourage you to file a bug in our public database [https://bugs.adobe.com/flashplayer/] so we can investigate.
More info on the Flash Player Team blog. The download is now available on Adobe Labs.
Troubleshooting AIR 1.5 on Linux
The AIR team has just published a pretty comprehensive blog post that can help you if you run in to a problem while installing AIR 1.5 on your Linux machine. In all honesty, I also ran in to a few glitches when I tried to install it on my Ubuntu machine… and the reason was very simple. I did not read the release notes (PDF). If I had done that, I would have known to remove any previous version of the AIR runtime and all AIR applications before installing AIR 1.5. Doh!
From now on, I will read the release notes before I install anything… Well… Probably not… But this certainly is a lesson learnt. ;-)
AIR 1.5 for Linux released
Just a quick note to tell you that AIR 1.5 is now released for Linux. The AIR team also posted a TechNote on how to install AIR on 64-bit Linux distros.
I actually use Ubuntu on my EEE PC and AIR was one of the first things I installed on it. By installing the AIR runtime, I had immediate access to my favorite Twitter client Tweetdeck and the other AIR apps that I regularly use like Snackr, PassPack and TokBox.
AIR (alpha version) now available for Linux
Today, the world of Linux has become even more appealing. Linux developers can now use Web technologies to build desktop RIA’s. The AIR runtime, albeit in alpha flavor right now, is available for Linux as of today. I’ve been playing with AIR on Ubuntu last week and I really like it! Never before has it been that simple for a (web) developer to deploy an application on all major platforms (Mac, Win and Linux). We’re actually also showing some AIR apps running on Linux on the onAIR tour. This is also great news for the future of AIR. Lots of devices are actually running on Linux… I’m sure you can imagine what this means…
In addition an update to the Alpha version of Flex Builder for Linux has also gone live, which adds support for creating apps on AIR.
“Adobe is committed to delivering the technologies that enable developers everywhere to create the next generation of RIAs for the browser and the desktop,†said David Wadhwani, general manager, Platform business unit at Adobe. “With the alpha release of Adobe AIR for Linux and the Adobe Flex Builder for Linux alpha update, we’re delivering early releases of a first-class application runtime and RIA creation tool to the Linux community. This allows us to have an open conversation with users during our development process, which will give us very valuable developer insights.â€
In addition, we’re also announcing that Adobe is joining the Linux foundation!
It’s a great day!
Adobe AIR enables rich internet applications on the Windows, Mac AND Linux desktop
If you haven’t heard, last monday morning we released AIR 1.0 after an extensive period of both private and public beta testing. One of the biggest themes for AIR is cross-platform compatibility with just one installer file and without having to code anything specific (with a few exceptions like application menu’s and dock/system tray icons) for the OS your targetting. Actually, as of now you don’t even have to target a specific OS anymore to make a desktop application. The AIR runtime takes care of that for you. You just make your app using HTML, Javascript, Flash or Flex or even combinations of that, export a .air file and it works cross-platform right out of the box.
We’ve also been talking about Linux support from the very start and Kevin Lynch showed a demo of that at the Engage event in San Francisco. He used the Parleys application. Parleys is a project by the Belgian Java User Group. It allows you to watch all the presentations recorded from numerous JUG-events. I think they currently have some 200 hours of content on the site and now in the app that’s been built by Benjamin Dobler. (Watch the video interview with Benjamin)
Anyway… You don’t have to take my word for it. Just go and check out the video.
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