Bug 227543 – Eselect module for flash-nsplugins

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED NEEDINFO

[Description Daniel Pielmeier 2008-06-16 17:47:10 UTC]

As recently the alternatives to the netscape-flash browser-plugin (gnash,swfdec) become more and more mature i am asking for a way to handle the default plugin via eselect.

I stumbled over this while trying out the new alternatives and asked myself how this is handled in gentoo. Currently the last one emerged is used by the browser (firefox in my case). It is a bit annoying that one have to reinstall the plugin to use it.

The module could maybe implemented like the java-nsplugin by adjusting the symlink to point to the wanted flash-plugin. One thing which is maybe a problem is that swfdec currently does not install a symlink in /usr/lib/nsbrowser/plugins/ but installs directly to this directory, where gnash and netscape flash are using a symlink to /opt/netscape/plugins. So the ebuild needs to be changed to install in /opt/netscape/plugins too. The other two ebuilds shlould not create the symlink anymore as this will be done by selecting the default plugin within eselect.

I tried to alter the java-nsplugin.eselect module myself with the help of the eselect guide but i failed.

[Comment 1 Daniel Pielmeier 2008-06-16 17:57:33 UTC]

I just found out that updating the timestamp of the plugin by touching it as root has the same effect like reinstalling the ebuild, because the browser selects the plugin with most recent timestamp. So another way of changing the default plugin would be updating the timestamp. Maybe the ebuilds doesn't have to be changed when using this method.

[Comment 2 David Leverton 2008-06-16 18:58:50 UTC]

I wrote something for this a couple of years ago, but there didn't seem to be much interest¹.  After thinking a bit more about it, it's probably something that should be done on the browser side anyway, not a system-wide decision.  At least SeaMonkey 2 CVS seems to have the ability to enable and disable individual plugins, and I assume Firefox 3 has too.  I have no idea about other browsers.

If anyone thinks my old code would be useful, though, they're quite welcome to pick it up.  I might have a slightly newer version somewhere than what's in the archive (probably nothing too exciting, but maybe a little fix or two), so if you want I can dig that out.

[1] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/43629

[Comment 3 Daniel Pielmeier 2008-06-16 19:13:26 UTC]

It is solved in firefox 3:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=339056

It seems to manage flash, java and media-player plugins.

[Comment 4 Ulrich Müller 2009-05-26 05:59:33 UTC]

(In reply to comment #2)
> If anyone thinks my old code would be useful, though, they're quite welcome
> to pick it up.  I might have a slightly newer version somewhere than what's
> in the archive (probably nothing too exciting, but maybe a little fix or
> two), so if you want I can dig that out.

This it not a module that should go into eselect proper, but should be a separate new package. Therefore reassigning to maintainer-wanted.


(In reply to comment #3)
> It is solved in firefox 3:

Should this bug be closed then?

[Comment 5 Daniel Pielmeier 2009-05-30 17:48:44 UTC]

(In reply to comment #4)
> (In reply to comment #3)
> > It is solved in firefox 3:
> 
> Should this bug be closed then?
> 

If this was only an issue for firefox then I would say yes. I don't know how other web browsers do the plug in handling though.

[Comment 6 Ulrich Müller 2009-08-14 07:38:41 UTC]

(In reply to comment #5)
> If this was only an issue for firefox then I would say yes. I don't know how
> other web browsers do the plug in handling though.

Closing for now.