Bug 417471 – www-client/google-chrome - add USE=flash

• Status: RESOLVED FIXED
• Product: Gentoo Linux

[Description Dennis Schridde 2012-05-25 09:40:18 UTC]

It would be nice if www-client/google-chrome (20.0.1132.11_beta137611 and newer?) would get a "flash" useflag, because it ships a version of the Flash plugin [1] which might conflict with the Flash plugin by Adobe [2].

Since [1] is broken in regards to audio playback with PulseAudio (see [3]), the unexpected presence of the broken Flash plugin might confuse users.

[1] www-client/google-chrome-20.0.1132.11_beta137611 (/opt/google/chrome/PepperFlash/libpepflashplayer.so)
[2] www-plugins/adobe-flash-11.2.202.235 (/opt/Adobe/flash-player/flash-plugin/libflashplayer.so)
[3] https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=50324

Reproducible: Always

[Comment 1 Mike Gilbert 2012-05-25 17:25:48 UTC]

That sounds reasonable.

[Comment 2 Michael Weber (RETIRED) 2012-05-27 14:31:44 UTC]

USE=flash might be a bit misleading.
Better call it bundled-flash or system-flash to determine it from flash support in general.

[Comment 3 Mike Gilbert 2012-05-27 16:38:46 UTC]

How about pepper-flash? That is what Google calls it, since it is a flash plugin which uses the Pepper API.

[Comment 4 Mike Gilbert 2012-05-29 21:57:47 UTC]

Actually, if I'm not mistaken the bundled flash can be easily disabled via the chrome://plugins page. Since it can be disabled at run time, I see no real reason to make it a use flag.

[Comment 5 Dennis Schridde 2012-05-29 22:43:23 UTC]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Actually, if I'm not mistaken the bundled flash can be easily disabled via
> the chrome://plugins page. Since it can be disabled at run time, I see no
> real reason to make it a use flag.
The problem is that the user might not know there are multiple flash plugins installed and hence run into unexpected problems until he finally looks at chrome://plugins by "accident".

[Comment 6 Mike Gilbert 2012-05-30 14:20:23 UTC]

(In reply to comment #5)
> The problem is that the user might not know there are multiple flash plugins
> installed and hence run into unexpected problems until he finally looks at
> chrome://plugins by "accident".

I don't think a use flag is a good way to advertise this.

Is there a bug report upstream? They are the only ones who can actually fix the problem. Also, a bug report could be helpful to people who run into the issue you are experiencing.

[Comment 7 Dennis Schridde 2012-05-30 21:27:29 UTC]

(In reply to comment #6)
> (In reply to comment #5)
> > The problem is that the user might not know there are multiple flash plugins
> > installed and hence run into unexpected problems until he finally looks at
> > chrome://plugins by "accident".
> 
> I don't think a use flag is a good way to advertise this.
einfo "Google Chrome comes with its own version of Flash included"
?

If you would want to do something really awesome, you could do something like:
pepper_flash_version=$(sed -nre '/"version"\s*:/s/^.*:\s*"([^"]+)".*$/\1/p' "${D}"/opt/google/chrome/PepperFlash/manifest.json)
if has_version >=www-plugins/adobe-flash-$pepper_flash_version ; then
  ewarn "The version of Flash installed by Google Chrome is older than what is available system-wide.
  ewarn "  The former may contain bugs and security issues fixed in the latter."
  ewarn "  Visit chrome://plugins to select the most current version."
fi

> Is there a bug report upstream? They are the only ones who can actually fix
> the problem. Also, a bug report could be helpful to people who run into the
> issue you are experiencing.
No, I assume it will go away as soon as they update to the latest version of Adobe Flash.

[Comment 8 Michael Weber (RETIRED) 2012-06-01 13:13:29 UTC]

-- use flag, 

but mike, what about:

Index: google-chrome-21.0.1155.2_alpha139341.ebuild
===================================================================
RCS file: /var/cvsroot/gentoo-x86/www-client/google-chrome/google-chrome-21.0.1155.2_alpha139341.ebuild,v
retrieving revision 1.1
diff -u -B -r1.1 google-chrome-21.0.1155.2_alpha139341.ebuild
--- google-chrome-21.0.1155.2_alpha139341.ebuild        30 May 2012 15:38:14 -0000      1.1
+++ google-chrome-21.0.1155.2_alpha139341.ebuild        1 Jun 2012 13:12:50 -0000
@@ -113,3 +113,10 @@
                newins "${D}${CHROME_HOME}product_logo_${size}.png" google-chrome.png
        done
 }
+
+pkg_postinst() {
+       einfo
+       elog "Please notice the bundled flash player (PepperFlash)"
+       elog "You can (de)activate the flash plugin via chrome://plugins"
+       einfo
+}

[Comment 9 Mike Gilbert 2012-06-01 15:14:03 UTC]

(In reply to comment #8)

I don't really think this warrants an elog, but that's just my opinion. If you want to add it, go ahead. You do need to call chromium_pkg_postinst though.

[Comment 10 Michael Weber (RETIRED) 2012-06-01 16:04:59 UTC]

+  01 Jun 2012; Michael Weber <[e-mail]>
+  google-chrome-19.0.1084.52_p138391.ebuild,
+  google-chrome-20.0.1132.21_beta139451.ebuild,
+  google-chrome-21.0.1155.2_alpha139341.ebuild:
+  Add pkg_postinst warning about multiple flash plugins (bug 417471)
+