Experiences with linuxpluginwrapper and -STABLE

[Scott Mitchell]

Hi,

I've just spent a fun couple of hours with the linuxpluginwrapper and a
bunch of browsers on a 4.10-PRERELEASE box, trying to figure out exactly
what does and doesn't work.  Apologies if this is all old news, or I've
done something stupid, or the answer to all my problems is 'upgrade to 5.x'
- that will happen eventually, but in the meantime maybe there's something
here that can help improve the performance of the plugin wrapper.


Anyway - on with the results:


Konqueror 3.2.2:

    Flash - Runs perfectly, at full speed, but with no sound

    Acrobat - 'Unable to load plugin', although it's listed on the plugin
    configuration page.  The native KGhostView plugin works pretty well
    though, so this isn't such a big deal.


Mozilla 1.6:

    Flash - Runs very slowly (guessing ~ 50% of Konqueror speed), no sound

    Acrobat - Acroread process starts but immediately hangs, apparently
    stuck sleeping waiting for something that never happens.  I also get
    three instances of:
	'linux: syscall mmap2 is obsoleted or not implemented'
    on the console.  Killing the stuck acroread process allows the browser
    to continue.


FireFox 0.8:

    Flash - as for Mozilla

    Acrobat - as for Mozilla


Opera 7.23:

    Flash - Numerous instances of:
	'/usr/libexec/ld-elf.so.1: /usr/local/lib/pluginwrapper/flash6.so: Undefined symbol "pthread_mutexattr_init"'
    sent to stdout.  No activity from the plugin, browser hangs for ~10s,
    presumably while plugin fails to initialise.

    Acrobat - Works perfectly, as long as I don't have the FreeBSD native
    JVM configured in Opera.  If I do, I get:
	'/usr/local/Acrobat5/Reader/intellinux/bin/acroread: error while loading shared libraries: /usr/local/jdk1.4.2/jre/lib/i386/libawt.so: ELF file OS ABI invalid'
    on stdout and a blank page instead of the PDF.  Opera seems to have
    issues with the native JVM anyway, so this is not a total surprise.


All tested on a 4.10-PRERELEASE box as of last Tuesday, with KDE 3.2.2 and
other relevant ports:

	linuxpluginwrapper-20040310_1
	linux-flashplugin-6.0r79_1
	acroread-5.08
	linux_base-8-8.0_4
	opera-7.23.20031119_1
	mozilla-1.6_4,2
	firefox-0.8_5

My /etc/libmap.conf is as shipped with the linuxpluginwrapper, but with all
the Java3D and JAI stuff at the end commented out.

I believe there's a PR open to add mmap2() to the Linux emulator, but the
web interface seems to be down today so I can't say what number it is.

The lack of sound from Flash is a bit odd.  Java applets are able to make
noise, not sure what Flash is looking for that it can't find.

I would be totally happy if I could get one browser (ideally Opera, but any
one would do) to be happy with Flash and Acrobat, so I'm happy to
test/debug anything or agitate for PRs to be committed... In the meantime
Linux Opera and Konqueror+kghostview do a good job.

Anyway, hope this is useful to you, or someone else out there...

Cheers,

	Scott

-- 
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Scott Mitchell           | PGP Key ID | "Eagles may soar, but weasels
Cambridge, England       | 0x54B171B9 |  don't get sucked into jet engines"
scott at fishballoon.org | 0xAA775B8B |      -- Anon