ThinkingNectar

Ubuntu is a fantastic OS. Out of the box it is very usable and it is not even a pain to install in the first place to install for most modern machine.

But as in any end-user or consumer product or service, there is always be a last mile problem. Ubuntu by itself is beautiful but not flawless.

I encounter the issue of getting flash to work on my 64bit dual core machine. The Firefox install that comes by default and the gnasp flash plugin that comes with it fails to play decent Youtube clips. That is a obstacle that will turn some potentially new users off. But of course the more technically adventurous one will seek out ways to resolve it.

My solution can be found in the wonderfully informative Ubuntu Forums.

A kind soul going by the nick Kilz created a nspluginwrapper package and install Flash 9 for most 64bits machines. That includes most AMD6, Core2 Duo and Dual Core machines.

The installation includes downloading a tar file, closing all browsers, untar the file, run the script in terminal and fire off your browser to get everything working again. Pretty much painless.

To prevent any issue with this install, if you had (tried and failed to) install Flash for 64bits on your machines prior, kindly uninstall and remove all the other packages, eg Gnash as their presence might still affect the way Flash is played on your browser.

Also final issue might have to do with sound which I did not encounter. Looking forward, I guess I might have to play with my Flash install sometime soon as Firefox 3 official release is just around the corner.