HOWTO: nspluginwrapper for Konqueror

[dwidmann]

Alrighty willing guinea pigs, I've pulled together a how-to to tell you how to get 32-bit plugins (such as Adobe Flash) going in 64-bit Konqueror in (K)Ubuntu, through the use of nspluginwrapper. It's really simple, and it works, though it does take a while.

Patching Konqueror
The hard part, rebuilding kdebase with a patch, still not that hard, maybe a bit time consuming. The download is around 29MB, and building it took roughly 20-30 minutes on my hardware (I wasn't paying that much attention while it built ... played on IRC instead)

First, you need to turn on the source repositories for, at least, Ubuntu main. It will look like one of these:

deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu edgy main #for Edgy
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper main #for Dapper

It is important that the line say "deb-src" and not just "deb" - having only the "deb" line simply will not do! If you don't have a line like this, add it to your "/etc/apt/sources.list" file, and then

sudo apt-get update

If you're unsure how to do this, see this document for help: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories

Note: If you're using a more recent kde from http://kubuntu.org, you need a line like one of these too:

deb-src http://kubuntu.org/packages/kde-356 edgy main #for edgy
deb-src http://kubuntu.org/packages/kde-355 dapper main #for dapper

The instructions from now on will assume you're using KDE 3.5.6 in Edgy, if you're not, modify the locations/versions to suit.

sudo aptitude install build-essential fakeroot debhelper debconf
sudo apt-get build-dep kdebase
sudo apt-get source kdebase

wget [url]http://gwenole.beauchesne.info/projects/nspluginwrapper/files/kdebase-3.4.2-npapi-64bit-fixes.patch[/url]
patch kdebase-3.5.6/nsplugins/sdk/npapi.h kdebase-3.4.2-npapi-64bit-fixes.patch
cd kdebase-3.5.6
dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -uc -b
cd ..
sudo dpkg -i *.deb

Installing and Configuring NSPluginWrapper

First, you need to add the Janvitus repository to your "/etc/apt/sources.list" file if you don't already have it:

deb http://janvitus.cabspace.com/ubuntu/ edgy-janvitus main-amd64

Next, add the Janvitus gpg key:

wget [url]http://janvitus.cabspace.com/ubuntu/2C4C84CC.gpg[/url] -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Next, update and install nspluginwrapper

sudo aptitude update;
sudo aptitude install linux32 nspluginwrapper

Next, you'll need to have nspluginwrapper wrap the plugins so you can use them. I'll use Flash 9 as the example. You'll need to know where you have the plug-in installed at, for example, I have flash installed in /usr/lib/opera/plugins, so the command I would run would be this:

nspluginwrapper --install /usr/lib/opera/plugins/libflashplayer.so

All you have to do after doing this, is go to, in konqueror, settings -> configure konqueror -> plugins and click on scan for new plugins. It should pick it up, if not, add the directory ~/.mozilla/plugins to the list of plug-in directories Konqueror searches and try again.

Go to a place like http://www.adobe.com or http://www.youtube.com to test.

That concludes this little how-to, good luck and tell me if it works for you

[Batty]

Re: HOWTO: nspluginwrapper for Konqueror

"sudo dpkg -i *.deb" - gives me file not found
any suggestions as to where it should be

[dwidmann]

Re: HOWTO: nspluginwrapper for Konqueror

Should be in the directory that contains the kdebase-3.5.6 directory. Should be a bunch of *.debs there too, unless it failed.

[Batty]

Re: HOWTO: nspluginwrapper for Konqueror

Hi again, I got passed the *deb problem.

wget http://janvitus.cabspace.com/ubuntu/2C4C84CC.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

the above line keeps timing out and i can get no further, is there another way?

[dwidmann]

Re: HOWTO: nspluginwrapper for Konqueror

[quote=Batty ]
Hi again, I got passed the *deb problem.

wget http://janvitus.cabspace.com/ubuntu/2C4C84CC.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

the above line keeps timing out and i can get no further, is there another way?
[/quote

You can safely skip that line really. That line just adds the Janvitus key so apt won't bug you with lines about whether or not you trust a package. In short, don't worry about that line, skip it if necessary.

[heinkel_111]

Re: HOWTO: nspluginwrapper for Konqueror

My nspluginwrapper works fine in Firefox, but not in konqueror (it runs up to 100% CPU but nothing really happens). Any clues on what is wrong?

[dwidmann]

Re: HOWTO: nspluginwrapper for Konqueror

Sorry, not a clue. (sorry for the late reply, just got back from my vacation ) It seems to work well enough for me in Konqueror ... but it seems to have trouble if there are multiple flash objects on the same page.

[diesel1]

Re: HOWTO: nspluginwrapper for Konqueror

Hi all,

Would using the patch on kdebase mean it could break with updates?

Diesel1.

[heinkel_111]

Re: HOWTO: nspluginwrapper for Konqueror

The method above does not patch kdebase, it is more of a workaround on the plugin side. It installs additional files, and does not replace anything in kdebase so I guess that it will not break updates.

Gwenole Beauchesne (the guy that wrote nsppluginwrapper) makes a note about a patch to kdebase that is necessary to make the nspluginwrapper to work with konqueror. If you apply that, I guess there may be problems with regards to updates of kdebase. Someone may know more about this than me.
I got as far as to downloading the kdebase source and the patch, but ceased working on this without having actually applied the patch, recompiled and reinstalled.

In other words, I am a lazy sofa hacker