How to Install Adobe Flash Player using Ubuntu Linux Terminal

Adobe Flash player is a plugin that is integrated with your browser and allows a user to stream or watch videos e.g. on sites like YouTube. Nowadays, flash is not required in modern browsers like Google Chrome and has been faced out and replaced with NPAPI which is its version of Flash.

However, for Firefox browsers, you may see a pop up prompting you to install flash when you visit some sites like Vimeo and Youtube.

In this tutorial, we’ll take you through how you can install latest Adobe flash player on Ubuntu 18.04, CentOS 7 and Arch Linux from the terminal.

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Since the latest flash plugin resides in the Canonical repository and is by default disabled, we need to enable the repository prior to installing the plugin.

Step 1 – Enable Canonical Repository

To accomplish this, run the command below

add-apt-repository "deb http://archive.canonical.com/ $(lsb_release -sc) partner"

Step 2 – Update the system

Next, update the system

apt-get update

Step 3 – Install Adobe Flash Player

Install Adobe Flash Plugin from terminal

apt install adobe-flashplugin browser-plugin-freshplayer-pepperflash

Restart your Firefox browser and go to http://isflashinstalled.com

You'll see a webpage as shown below

Install Adobe Flash player 28 on CentOS 7

Since the Adobe flash player plugins are only available in official Adobe Yum repositories, we need to first enable the Adobe yum repository.

Step 1 – Enable Yum Repository

 rpm -ivh http://linuxdownload.adobe.com/adobe-release/adobe-release-x86_64-1.0-1.noarch.rpm

Sample Output

Retrieving http://linuxdownload.adobe.com/adobe-release/adobe-release-x86_64-1.0-1.noarch.rpm
warning: /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.m26n4m: Header V3 DSA/SHA1 Signature, key ID f6777c67: NOKEY
Preparing...                          ################################# [100%]
Updating / installing...
   1:adobe-release-x86_64-1.0-1       ################################# [100%]

Step 2 – Import the GPG key in your system

rpm --import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-adobe-linux

Next, we'll install Adobe Flash player

Step 3 – Install Adobe Flash player along with its dependencies

yum install flash-plugin alsa-plugins-pulseaudio libcurl

Sample Output

Dependencies Resolved

================================================================================
 Package         Arch      Version                  Repository             Size
================================================================================
Installing:
 flash-plugin    x86_64    29.0.0.140-release       adobe-linux-x86_64    8.6 M

Transaction Summary
================================================================================
Install  1 Package

Total download size: 8.6 M
Installed size: 20 M
Is this ok [y/d/N]: y
Downloading packages:
flash-player-npapi-29.0.0.140-release.x86_64.rpm           | 8.6 MB   00:44     
Running transaction check
Running transaction test
Transaction test succeeded
Running transaction
Warning: RPMDB altered outside of yum.
  Installing : flash-plugin-29.0.0.140-release.x86_64                       1/1 
  Verifying  : flash-plugin-29.0.0.140-release.x86_64                       1/1 

Installed:
  flash-plugin.x86_64 0:29.0.0.140-release

Step 3 – Verifying Installation of Flash Player Plugin

Finally, we need to verify whether Flash player plugin has been installed. Close your Firefox or Google Chrome browser and launch it again.
For Google Chrome browser, open a new tab and type chrome://flash/

The following page will be displayed

For Firefox browser, open a new tab and type about:plugins
Scroll down to the bottom of the page and locate Shockwave Flash

How to install Adobe Flash player on Arch Linux

To install Adobe flash player plugin on Arch Linux, first run the command below

pacman -S flashplugin

Sample Output

looking for conflicting packages...

Packages (1) flashplugin-29.0.0.140-1

Total Download Size:    6.93 MiB
Total Installed Size:  19.16 MiB

:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n] y
:: Retrieving packages...
 flashplugin-29.0.0....     6.9 MiB   644K/s 00:11 [----------------------] 100%
(1/1) checking keys in keyring                     [----------------------] 100%
(1/1) checking package integrity                   [----------------------] 100%
(1/1) loading package files                        [----------------------] 100%
(1/1) checking for file conflicts                  [----------------------] 100%
:: Processing package changes...
(1/1) installing flashplugin                       [----------------------] 100%
Optional dependencies for flashplugin
    libvdpau: GPU acceleration on Nvidia cards [installed]
:: Running post-transaction hooks...
(1/3) Updating icon theme caches...
(2/3) Arming ConditionNeedsUpdate...
(3/3) Updating the desktop file MIME type cache...

Next , install dependencies

pacman -S libvdpau-va-gl

Sample Output

resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...

Packages (2) libva-2.1.0-1  libvdpau-va-gl-0.4.2-2

Total Download Size:   0.22 MiB
Total Installed Size:  1.01 MiB
Net Upgrade Size:      0.44 MiB

:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n] Y
:: Retrieving packages...
 libva-2.1.0-1-x86_64     137.6 KiB   195K/s 00:01 [----------------------] 100%
 libvdpau-va-gl-0.4....    83.8 KiB   349K/s 00:00 [----------------------] 100%
(2/2) checking keys in keyring                     [----------------------] 100%
(2/2) checking package integrity                   [----------------------] 100%
(2/2) loading package files                        [----------------------] 100%
(2/2) checking for file conflicts                  [----------------------] 100%
:: Processing package changes...
(1/2) upgrading libva                              [----------------------] 100%
(2/2) installing libvdpau-va-gl                    [----------------------] 100%
:: Running post-transaction hooks...
(1/1) Arming ConditionNeedsUpdate...

Finally, update the system

pacman -Syu

Open your Firefox browser and type about:plugins and check for the installed plugin as shown earlier on.

Read also:

• 6 Commands to Clear Linux Terminal
• How to Connect WiFi from Terminal on Ubuntu 16.04
• Install Tilix Terminal Emulator in Ubuntu/Fedora/Arch Linux

Modern Linux distributions come with Adobe flash player installed and in most cases, you won't be required to install the flash plugin. In summary, we have shown you how you can go about installing Adobe flash player plugin in your Ubuntu, CentOS and ArchLinux distributions. Thank you for taking your time in this tutorial.