Peppermint 2 flash update failed

Did a system update through update manager flash failed to update -

E: /var/cache/apt/archives/adobe-flashplugin_11.2.202.233-0natty1_i386.deb: short read on buffer copy for backend dpkg-deb during `./usr/lib/adobe-flashplugin/libflashplayer.so’

It seems to me that it is trying to update to a flash version based on Ubuntu 11.10 when it is based on 11.4 this must cause a conflict.

It also seems that there is a problem with the new Linux image 2.6.38-15 for some reason it fails to install and the system reverts to 2.6.38-14 this seems to impact on the flash player.

Any thoughts would be welcome.

Nope that’s the right version of flash (natty = 11.04), but there seems to be something weird (technical term there) going on in your package cache … try running:

sudo apt-get clean

then

sudo apt-get update

then

sudo apt-get upgrade

If you receive any errors, post them back here.

It is getting stuck at configuering ttf-mscorefonts installer

OK … the ttf-mscorefonts-installer package requires you to to accept a license … so it’s awaiting input from you.

Lets’ clear the package cache again:

sudo apt-get clean

Now lets make sure the ttf-mscorefonts-installer package isn’t already installed, but somehow stuck:

sudo apt-get remove --purge ttf-mscorefonts-installer

Now install the ttf-mscorefonts-installer package through Synaptic … as that gives you a pop-up window to accept the license.

Fire up Synaptic (menu>System Tools>Synaptic Package Manager) … search for ttf-mscorefonts-installer … click the little box at the beginning of that line, and select “Mark For Installation” … click “Apply”.

Now (as explained in my Peppermint Tutorial) at some point a window will appear that want’s you to accept the license, but sometimes this window appears BEHIND the Synaptic window … so the installation APPEARS to stall … so minimise the Synaptic Window, and accept the license, and the installation will continue … you MUST accept this license, or the installation will fail.

Once you’ve done that, close Synaptic … open a terminal, and run:

sudo apt-get update

then

sudo apt-get upgrade

And if any errors … post them here.

Get following error

E: linux-image-2.6.38-15-generic: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 2
E: linux-image-generic: dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
E: linux-generic: dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

OK … first thing to try:

sudo apt-get remove --purge linux-image-2.6.38-15-generic

then

sudo apt-get autoremove

then

sudo apt-get update

then

sudo apt-get upgrade

If that doesn’t work, we’ll move on … but post any errors

If it doesn’t work, run these 2 commands:

sudo cp -v /var/lib/dpkg/status /var/lib/dpkg/status.backup

then

cat /var/lib/dpkg/status >> ~/status.txt

you’ll now find a file called status.txt in your home folder … attach it to your next posting.

This seems to have cleared the problems with the operating system.

However the plugin crashes when I visit video streaming sites. Have tried both Chrome and fire fox. I know the lap top is old it is a pentium 3 with a 900 Mhz CPU it’s an IBM Think Pad T22.

But it used to run Windows XP and play video with flash.

Did the last version of flashplayer work ? … or is this the first time you’ve tried flash (in Linux) on this PC ?

Is this 32bit or 64bit Peppermint ? … if you’re not sure, what is the output from:

uname -a

I personally think that the problem lies elsewhere. Chrome uses it’s own (built in) flash therefore it should not be affected by the same plugin as Firefox is.

Is it possible that it crashes because it runs out of memory? What is installed? 256mb?
Just watch out for the ram used at idling.

free -m

then try it when Firefox or Chrome is loaded

I’d agree it’s liable to be elsewhere, particularly since the flashplayer is so resource hungy.

One question though … Peppermint comes with Chromium not Chrome … as Chromium is open source, does that have the closed source flashplayer built in too ?

Though I can’t seem to find a definitive answer to that question … Googleing seems to suggest Chromium DOESN’T have the built-in flashplayer or ffmpeg codecs that Chrome does.

So it still may be a faulty flashplayer plugin, or just a flashplayer setting such as hardware acceleration, or local cache size …

But still more likely that the system just isn’t up to the job.

All I’m saying is AFAIK with Chromium (not Chrome), Firefox and Chromium may still be using the same plugin.

[EDIT]

Just tested it … removed the system wide flashplayer plugin and Chromium can’t play flash either, so it looks Like Chromium doesn’t have a built in flashplayer.

FYI, Chromium (unlike firefox) when attempting to play a flash youtube video without the flash plugin … automatically swithched to the HTML5 video (firefox didn’t) … so I had to test it on a page with flash only.

@ Tramlink

A good question to ask at this point would probably be -

Did you mean Chromium or Chrome ?

If Chromium, it could still be a corrupt flash plugin
If Chrome … as Sezo suggests, it’s unlikely to be a corrupt flash plugin, because that uses its own flash plugin, so it would be unlikely that both plugins failed at the same time

Some answers-

it is a 32bit system, 500mb of Ram (Max) it is Chromium. I have tried all versions of flash that are available in the package manager. fire fox comes with an add-on that determines the best version of flash for your system and installs it.

There are about 100mb of free Ram at idle is this a ram issue.

Personally I think it’s a CPU+RAM issue … I had a 2.8Ghz Pentium 4 (single core) laptop with 768MB Ram and flash was “choppy” at best.

IMHO, Adobe have done a terrible job with the Linux flash player … even now on a dual core 2.8Ghz CPU, flash (youtube video) use 135% of the CPU’s so it’s maxing out 1 core, and using 35% of the other.

Anywho … when you open a flash video, what happens if you right click the flash window, then select “Settings” … then take the tick out of “Enable Hardware Acceleration” … and set “Local Storage” to 1MB.

We can try manually installing an earlier version of flash if that makes no difference if you wish.

Have you EVER been able to use flash (in Linux) on this machine ? … if the answer to this is yes, then it indicates a flash plugin problem.

Does the flash “crash” or just go “choppy”

Can you send the output from:

sudo lshw -C display

just interested in the graphics card too.

   description: VGA compatible controller
   product: 86C270-294 Savage/IX-MV
   vendor: S3 Inc.
   physical id: 0
   bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
   version: 13
   width: 32 bits
   clock: 66MHz
   capabilities: pm agp agp-1.0 vga_controller bus_master cap_list
   configuration: latency=64 maxlatency=255 mingnt=4
   resources: memory:f0000000-f7ffffff memory:30000000-3000ffff

The rest of this message is copy/pasted from my last response … as the answers may help diagnose the issue :wink:

Anywho … when you open a flash video, what happens if you right click the flash window, then select “Settings” … then take the tick out of “Enable Hardware Acceleration” … and set “Local Storage” to 1MB.

We can try manually installing an earlier version of flash if that makes no difference if you wish.

Have you EVER been able to use flash (in Linux) on this machine ? … if the answer to this is yes, then it indicates a flash plugin problem.

Does the flash “crash” or just go “choppy”

When I fist put Linux on this computer peppermint one I could play flash at lowest quality. I had not tried flash since upgrading to peppermint 2.

It has proved impossible to right click a flash item as it crashes on starting in both Chromium and fire fox. However the problem was resolved by removing flash and using lightspark instead. This coupled with flash replacement plug in on both Chromium and fire fox means that I can now play flash videos.

It seems that as you said it is a resource issue.

Thanks for your help.

Glad you’ve found a solution … and that info may be of use to others, so thanks :slight_smile:

Glad it worked out for you. Couple questions (just being curious)

However the problem was resolved by removing flash and using lightspark instead.

Are you using Gnash now as a plugin?
To check this in Firefox tipe in the URL bar:

about:plugins

Also I find it curious why your LXDE system is using 400mb out of 500 at idle (this might be a Peppermint2 issue).

As a comparison (at idling after first boot) my desktop LMDE (xfce) uses around 135mb out of 1 gb
On my AA1 ArchBang (openbox) uses 73mb out of 1.5gb with wireless enabled.

Memory usage “at idle” is a bit nondescript … and can depend on daft things like size of wallpaper image, what tasks are running in the background (which may depend on “when” you check) … it can be a useful pointer if you know how to read/make sense of the readings, or it can drive you insane if you don’t :wink:

To make more sense out of memory usage “at idle”, it would be best to do a reboot, check top … check what processes are running … then decide if they are necessary or not.

Then you’d need to keep a close eye out for runaway (maybe leaking) processes later on.

My point is … “at idle” doesn’t mean much on its own, and means different things at different times to different people :slight_smile:

Though depending on what was running at the time … 400MB does (maybe) seem a little excessive.

[EDIT]

What would be more interesting would be to know if flash was causing the swap file to be used.

@ SeZo

It would seem the answer to your gnash/plugin question is probably YES, “sort of”, “sometimes” … see here:

I’d not heard of Lightspark either :-[

Lightspark is a free and open source SWF player released under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) version 3.

Lightspark supports most of ActionScript 3.0 and has a Mozilla-compatible plug-in. It will fall back on Gnash, a free SWF player on ActionScript 1.0 and 2.0 (AVM1) code.

Nice to know about though … nice find Tramink :slight_smile:

Memory usage "at idle" is a bit nondescript ..

You are right of course, I might have been a bit vague about the measuring of the ram used by the DE.

For reference see the output on my desktop after boot up:

free -m total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 1010 349 660 0 41 180 -/+ buffers/cache: 127 883 Swap: 3999 0 3999
In this case it is 127MiB used. Not counting buffers & cached.

Just for comparison … PeppermintOS Two after a reboot, with wireless enabled, connected to 3 VPN tunnels, and running monitoring software:-

mark@mark-AA1 ~ $ free -m total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 1498 249 1248 0 29 126 -/+ buffers/cache: 93 1404 Swap: 497 0 497

and what it climbed to when I opened Firefox and played a 360p flash video on youtube:-

mark@mark-AA1 ~ $ free -m total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 1498 587 910 0 31 253 -/+ buffers/cache: 303 1194 Swap: 497 0 497

But it’s the CPU usage that really goes through the roof when flash is used :o

:wink: