FreeBSD: How to Install Adobe Flash in FreeBSD 8

Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to Web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements and games. More recently, it has been positioned as a tool for "Rich Internet Applications" ("RIAs").

Adobe Flash plugin is not available for FreeBSD. However, a software wrapper for running the Linux version of the plugin exists. This wrapper also supports more plugins such as Adobe Acrobat plugin and RealPlayer.

In FreeBSD 8.X, install the www/nspluginwrapper port. This port requires emulators/linux_base-f10 which is a large port.

cd /usr/ports/www/nspluginwrapper
make install clean

The next step is to install the www/linux-f10-flashplugin10 port.

cd /usr/ports/www/linux-f10-flashplugin10
make install clean

This version will require the following link to be created:

ln -s /usr/local/lib/npapi/linux-f10-flashplugin/libflashplayer.so /usr/local/lib/browser_plugins/

Once the right Flash port is installed, the plugin must be installed by each user with nspluginwrapper:

nspluginwrapper -v -a -i

Next, you have to mount the Linux process file system. This can be done by root via the following command:

mount -t linprocfs linproc /usr/compat/linux/proc

This point can be automated at boot time with the addition of the matching line in /etc/fstab:

linproc /usr/compat/linux/proc linprocfs rw 0 0

Then, start your browser, enter about:plugins in the address bar and press Enter. A list should appear with all the currently available plugins.