Macromedia Flash Player
Netscape Beta Plug-in for Linux 
17 November 1998



This is a beta release of the Flash Player Netscape plug-in for the Linux 
platform. This Flash Player has been tested with Redhat 5.1 and 
Slackware 3.5.0 only, and with Netscape 3.04, 4.08, and 4.5, only. All 
known bugs are listed below.

As with any beta release, you may experience some unexpected results. 
Please take the time to report to us any bugs you might find so that we 
may fix them and provide you with a stable final product. See the 
information for reporting bugs below.





System Requirements

OS versions:

Redhat 5.1 or 5.2
Slackware 3.5
Pentium Processor
MKLinux for Macintosh systems is not currently supported.

Browser versions:

Netscape Navigator 3 or later, with standard install defaults.
Netscape 2 does not support plugins on the UNIX platform.





Installation

These examples assume that you unpacked the Flash_linux.tar.gz into the 
top level of your user directory. Your user directory is referred to as 
<$homedir>

To install the Flash Player as Root user:

1. Go to the directory where Netscape is located. For example:

cd /usr/bin/Netscape4.05
 
	
2. Copy the Flash Player (libflashplayer.so) into the 
Netscape plugin directory. For example:

cp <$homedir>/flash_linux/libflashplayer.so /usr/bin/Netscape4.05/plugins/

3. Start Netscape.

4. Verify the installation by typing about:plugins in the location bar. 
You should see the Flash Player listed. 

5. To test the Flash Player go to: 

http://www.flash.com/


To install as a standard user:

1. If you have not yet used Netscape, create a Netscape preferences 
directory in your home directory by launching Netscape and then 
closing it. The preferences directory appears in your home 
directory like this:

<$homedir>/.netscape/ 

2. Go to the preferences directory. For example:

cd .netscape

3. If you are using any Netscape 3 release you will already have a 
plugin directory. If you are using any Netscape 4 release and 
haven't already done so, you will need to create a plugin directory. 
Create this directory inside the .netscape directory and name 
it "plugins". For example:

mkdir plugins

4. Copy the Flash Player plug-in (libflashplayer.so) into the
./netscape/plugins directory. For example:

cp <$homedir>/flash_linux/libflashplayer.so <$homedir>/.netscape/plugins/


5. Start Netscape. 

6. Verify the installation by typing about:plugins in the location bar. 
You should see the Flash Player listed. 

7. To test the Flash Player, go to: 

http://www.flash.com/ 





Known Bugs:

LiveConnect is not functional with this Beta release. Some 
websites using LiveConnect will cause error dialogs to appear.


Some web sites use JavaScript detection and may default to a 
non-Flash page for users who are not on Macintosh or Windows 
platforms. Some web sites may have a link you can click to get 
to the Flash content. 

RealFlash is not supported by RealAudio on the UNIX platform.





Technical issues and Reporting Bugs:


The Webplayers Discussion Group provides an open forum to discuss 
technical issues regarding Macromedia Players. Also of interest are 
the Flash, Flash Site Design, and Generator DiscussionGroups. 
Macromedia Technical Support actively monitors these groups, as 
well as hosting a community of users there. Descriptions and links 
to these discussion groups can be found at: 
 
http://www.macromedia.com/support/newsgroups.html 



Bug Reports may be sent to beta_flashlinux@macromedia.com 
To allow us to investigate reported bugs, please include the 
following information:

1) Platform and version
2) Netscape version
3) Reproducible steps including a URL to the web site where the 
problem was encountered.

If we need further information about a bug, you will be contacted. 
An automated reply will be sent to assure you that we have received 
your bug report. Due to the volume of mail received we are not able 
to individually respond to each report.