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Adobe Levels the Playing Field with AIR 1.5 for Linux

Dec 18, 2008  By Shawn Powers

Adobe releases AIR 1.5 for Linux today, December 18, 2008. This is great news for Linux users that have been stuck with 1.1 Beta. AIR applications that have been unable to install should install and run without problems.

Also of note, there was a small update to the Adobe Flash Player yesterday, that smooths out a few glitches with the web-based application installer mechanism AIR uses to install local apps.

Adobe has committed to releasing all future updates to AIR in tandem for all 3 operating systems they support. No more will the Linux community need to wait months to get the new version.

Not familiar with AIR? That's OK, it's a great time to check it out. The Adobe Marketplace has tons of applications to try.

______________________

Shawn Powers is an Associate Editor for Linux Journal. You might find him chatting on the IRC channel, or Twitter

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These people will not be allowed on my computer

MadTom's picture
Submitted by MadTom (not verified) on Sun, 12/28/2008 - 04:27.

Adobe have managed to keep a market for Flash by stopping development of Javascript by joining MS in the 'development' standards process.
There is nothing in Flash that cannot be done fully openly and to encourage these land grabbers onto any computer I own would be plain stupid.
Flashblock - thank you!

GUI Install of AIR (GNOME)

Telic's picture
Submitted by Telic (not verified) on Fri, 12/26/2008 - 15:42.

Some assert that the CLI is required to install Adobe AIR. Wrong!

Using Nautilus' GUI, right-click on the Adobe BIN file and check under the Properties' Permissions tab, to allow executing the file as a program. Next, right-click and Rename the file to remove its .bin extension, so the file name is just AdobeAIRInstaller. Finally, double-click the file to run the Adobe installer, which pops open a new window, requests your authorization (password), and prompts you through the install. That's it.

You'll find AIR maintenance items in the Ubuntu "Accessories" menu (or the "Tools" menu of Mandriva Linux 2009). The .air file extension is associated with Adobe's run-time. An AIR application can be removed via the distro RPM or DEB package manager GUI, or by double-clicking its original .air installation file.

:-)

"Linux" does not have AIR.

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 12/19/2008 - 17:20.

"Linux" does not have AIR. "Linux x86" and/or "Linux amd64" (configured in a standard way) does. That's a tiny portion of "Linux", considering that Linux runs on Intel, PowerPC, ARM, SPARC, etc., and can also be running a screenreader rather than seen visually, for instance, If they'd made a producer product that created media according to the standards already developed and agreed (Dynamic HTML 5, SVG, SMIL, etc.), they'd be encouraging something that can be implemented on all platforms capable of it. Instead, they chose to try to own the downstream clients by creating their own custom client software that's proprietary.

So no, it doesn't run on Linux. In fact, it's the antithesis of Linux and FOSS.

I agree... but

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 12/22/2008 - 14:39.

I do agree but I think we should give Adobe a fair chance here... x32 and amd64 are the biggest branches of Linux so it seems rational to release for them first at least in the begining.

Adobes interest in (or should it be "qantum leap" to) Linux is very important for Linux.

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