Is Flash typically slow on Linux?

Specifically, I'm running Mint 8 (Helena). I'm extremely new to Linux, and was searching for a solution that was user-friendly and GUI oriented. The box won't be used for much other than web browsing and word processing.

Anyway, it runs relatively smoothly, except for Youtube videos... especially full-screen, which runs at like 1 FPS, and even after closing, slows Firefox to a crawl until I restart it.

I'd seen an xkcd comic on the matter, but regarded it as a joke until now. Is this actually a problem? Are there any remedies I can try to smooth the applications?

Corey

Posted 2010-05-10T19:16:36.433

Reputation: 1 212

I suppose the problem can mostly be attributed to the fact that it's a really old box, and that ATI doesn't seem to bode too well with Linux (from a comment here, as well as a few other sources I had looked at). – Corey – 2010-05-12T23:18:40.830

Answers

No, flash is not typically slow under Linux.

Since you mention slow fullscreen video, are you sure 2D hardware acceleration is working in your setup? If it doesn't, software acceleration will be used, and it is much slower.

Benjamin Bannier

Posted 2010-05-10T19:16:36.433

Reputation: 13 999

As I said, I'm new. Could you point me in the right direction to troubleshoot this? – Corey – 2010-05-10T19:34:15.013

1Open a terminal. Type: glxinfo. You need these : * GL_ARB_multitexture * GL_EXT_framebuffer_object * GL_ARB_shader_objects * GL_ARB_shading_language_100 * GL_ARB_fragment_shader. If they are there, you will get the normal hardware accel perf. – Apache – 2010-05-10T19:43:40.427

Also,there is a strange bug which I just found. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/flashplugin-nonfree/+bug/250792 ... No comment. >.>

– Apache – 2010-05-10T19:45:35.247

@Corey: That highly depends on your hardware since it often requires specialized drivers. What graphics card do you use? – Benjamin Bannier – 2010-05-10T20:09:48.467

@honk: ATI Radeon HD 4830. I (after much confusion) managed to install the drivers for the ATI 4800 series from their site last night. – Corey – 2010-05-10T20:27:15.740

ATI is the worst under Linux so I wish you good luck. Anyway, do you have the neccessary extensions in glxinfo? – Apache – 2010-05-10T20:46:44.050

Sorry for the long delay. I do have all extensions. – Corey – 2010-05-12T20:29:13.693

For me, since my hardware isn't officially supported in the proprietary nvidia driver, flash flickers in Chrome and Firefox. In Opera it doesn't. – Evan Plaice – 2010-11-13T18:32:29.367

I've had no problems with flash on ubuntu/suse releases in the last two years (can't remember before that :)

bryan

Posted 2010-05-10T19:16:36.433

Reputation: 7 848

Did you ever try it under Windows with a recent vga and with flash 10.1 ? ;) – Apache – 2010-05-11T07:03:46.080

Yes its slow. 32bit is better than the 64bit plugin though. 10.1 brings some improvements (mostly for 32bit), but still no normal performance. 10.2 MAY be the one which the Linux community wants. (Adobe have always been famous about their plugins on non-Windows platforms.. :))

Apache

Posted 2010-05-10T19:16:36.433

Reputation: 14 755

Really? I'm getting rocking performance with the 64-bit plugin for all but a few (badly-written, I suspect) apps. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams – 2010-05-10T19:36:57.757

All apps are typically slower on Linux. There were some rants about this sometime ago. Anyway, I can understand that some of you write there are no problems with that which is obviously not true. Even if one have a good VGA card, a working driver (like I have a NVidia with latest NVidia binary driver), you wont even get close to the Win performance (or the usable performance). If I try to watch a movie full screen on youtube, it freezes my PC .. I can quit only if I tap ESC like some lunatic. On 32bit (i386) its much better, but still far from how it should be. – Apache – 2010-05-10T19:42:20.850

shrug I have an Intel 965GM, and fullscreen video works fine at 1280×800. Take it as you will. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams – 2010-05-10T19:57:22.933

Taking it. Have a NVidia 8600gts and a GTX card, Core2Quad EE cpu. 1920x1080. TOTAL FREEZE. (Everyone experiences this). By the way, Ubuntu installs 32bit plugin by default, so don't think if you used the package manager you got the 64bit. You have to fetch that by hand. – Apache – 2010-05-10T19:59:24.473

@Fujishiro (3 comments up): not all apps are slower on Linux, i.e. there's nothing about Linux that inherently makes programs run slower. I get great results with the Hulu Desktop client, for example. But I definitely agree that the Flash plugin on Linux isn't up to par. – David Z – 2010-05-10T20:44:54.960

1I meant the linux flash player of course, nothing else. :) – Apache – 2010-05-10T20:45:59.357

I have seen in the past that Flash version on Windows use Hardware Acceleration. While the linux version lagged, and didn't use Hardware Acceleration. Could it be that the interfaces are just not there for this kind of thing to work on Linux?

CrazyEnigma

Posted 2010-05-10T19:16:36.433

Reputation: 101