Ubuntu Gutsy Flash Broken And Fixed

This morning, on my Ubuntu Gutsy machine, there was a single update available for the flashplugin-nonfree package. I went ahead and installed it.

$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
[sudo] password for richb:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
  xserver-xorg-video-ati
The following packages will be upgraded:
  flashplugin-nonfree
1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
Need to get 18.1kB of archives.
After unpacking 0B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? 
Get:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates/multiverse flashplugin-nonfree 9.0.48.0.2+really0ubuntu12.1 [18.1kB]
Fetched 18.1kB in 0s (25.8kB/s)       
Preconfiguring packages ...
(Reading database ... 132129 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace flashplugin-nonfree 9.0.48.0.2+really0ubuntu12 (using .../flashplugin-nonfree_9.0.48.0.2+really0ubuntu12.1_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement flashplugin-nonfree ...
Setting up flashplugin-nonfree (9.0.48.0.2+really0ubuntu12.1) ...
Installing from local file /var/cache/flashplugin-nonfree/install_flash_player_9_linux.tar.gz
md5sum mismatch install_flash_player_9_linux.tar.gz
The Flash plugin is NOT installed.

Grr! Now Flash in my browser was broken. I did a quick google on it, and after following a couple links in various Ubuntu bug reports came to bug #173890

In comment #212 is a fix.

  $ wget http://kubuntu.org/~jriddell/tmp/flashplugin-nonfree_9.0.48.0.2+really0ubuntu12.2_i386.deb
  $ sudo dpkg --install flashplugin-nonfree_9.0.48.0.2+really0ubuntu12.2_i386.deb

After doing that, a quick refresh of a browser page containing Flash showed that it was now working nicely.

Nice job Jonathan and Ubuntu! I wish all companies could respond to problems this fast.

Of course, it would have been even better if they hadn't broken it in the first place.

[Technorati Tag: Ubuntu]

[Technorati Tag: Flash]

( Feb 07 2008, 10:47:26 AM PST ) [Listen] Permalink Comments [5]

Runescape 3

Duncan and I have a ritual nowadays. While I'm in my (home) office first thing in the morning, catching up on my email, he's logged in on one of the other computers playing games or reading before he has to go off to school.

This morning he was really frustrated and said "the guy on YouTube is right. Runescape 3 is a fake!"

Apparently I'd stepped away from the Internet for just a moment, because I didn't even know there was a Runescape 3. I asked him to show me the video. There are several similar videos on YouTube. What they seem to have in common is that they direct you to their own web sites where there are probably key loggers in place to grab the names and passwords of unsuspecting users (like Duncan).

From what I can tell, there is a real Runescape 3 in beta, and that one looks valid. If it's not, it's a helluva good spoof.

Update: It's a fake too. I should have looked closer. Thanks Sebastian.

I think that was the one that Duncan had been trying to log into, but was getting nowhere. To be safe, I got him to immediately change his Runescape 2 password. If that site was bogus too, or he's tried to log into one of the other ones, then hopefully we're in time and they won't be able to abuse his real Runescape account.

I hope I've interpreted all this correctly. This afternoon, when he comes home from school, I'll give him a little talk on what happened and see if there are ways to prevent it happening again. I really don't want to put some kind of NetNanny in place, because that'll probably just make him more determined to try to circumvent it. Better to take each incident one at a time. Unless it starts to gets out of control.

[Technorati Tag: Runescape]

[Technorati Tag: Games]

( Feb 07 2008, 08:44:15 AM PST ) [Listen] Permalink Comments [2]