Tiny Core Linux
Tiny Core Extensions => TCE Q&A Forum => Topic started by: Mike7 on April 02, 2014, 01:36:33 AM
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Hi, all.
I recently installed the Chromium.tcz in my CorePlue-5.1 pendrive installation. As it doesn't include Flash Player, I also downloaded getflash11.tcz from the repo. This performed some sleight-of-hand and not only put flash11.tcz into the optional/ folder and into onboot.lst, but made it automatically available to Chromium (apparently) whenever I go to a website that requires it. (It does seem to be eating up an awful lot of the CPU, though.)
However, there are two problems I'm having. The first and most important is that when I try to watch a Youtube video, it starts up okay (proving that flash player is there), but after around five seconds shuts off, giving me the "An error has occurred" Youtube screen. This happens consistently regardless of what video I'm trying to watch. And it doesn't happen when I go to the same Youtube videos using Chrome in Puppy Linux or Firefox in Windows, all on the same wi-fi signal.
I should mention here that other websites that use Flash Player but don't show videos seem to work okay in Chromium in CorePlus..
The second problem, rather a minor one, is that the getflash11.tcz put a "getflash11" entry in my desktop Apllications menu, and I can't figure out what this is for, except maybe to download an update. But if that's its only function, why is it in the Applications menu?
A little help here will be gratefully received, as I am trying rather desperately to make TCL my main OS since its the only one I've got that connects so well to all my available wi-fi signals (and for other reasons, too).
Cheers!
Mike
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Mike7, I have followed suit and also installed the getflash11.tcz. In looking at the Info tab I noticed it says:
NOTE: Upon first time loading of this extension, the getflash11.sh
script is automatically run. Later, if you want to update your flash11.tcz,
then select getFlash11 from the Apps menu and run it, following the directions
given about rebooting.
This may not answer the why, but it does answer what it is there for.
Thank-you
Keith L Terrill
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Mike7, I just tried the Flash in Chrome as well as Facebook. Both displayed video. However, the youtube also failed after a few moments for me. I am not sure why.
Thank-you
Keith L Terrill
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Hi, Keith.
I read the info tab, too. Makes sense, as there are relatively frequent updates to flashplayer.
However, the wiki says something different:
http://wiki.tinycorelinux.net/wiki:flash_player (http://wiki.tinycorelinux.net/wiki:flash_player)
"If you install a different browser after installing Flash Player, and want Flash Player on it, delete the flash extension in the tce directory, and install Flash Player again."
Maybe this is no longer necessary, since the wiki was written at the time of getFlash10.tcz. In that case, the wiki needs to be edited so that newbies like me who read it don't get confused. As to Corebook, I can find nothing in it about flashplayer, nor about browsers.
Mike
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Keith-
the youtube also failed after a few moments for me.
Sorry you had this problem, but I'm glad I'm not alone <wink>.
M.
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"If you install a different browser after installing Flash Player, and want Flash Player on it, delete the flash extension in the tce directory, and install Flash Player again."
As I recall - I never use flash - different browsers expect the flash library to be in different locations, so if you changed browser, you might need to create a new symlink to the flash library.
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flash11.tcz contains a start script which creates symlinks to the flash library for Minefield, Opera, SeaMonkey, FireFox and IceCat. Even if those are not installed/loaded. So there is no need to run getFlash11.tcz again for one of those browsers.
Does Chromium come with it's own version of flash?
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Lately I've been running Chromium-Browser with a getFlash created Flash11 extension without issue. I believe some time back I also briefly experienced the issue described earlier in this thread, but I feel that when flash movies stop playing the network is a likely suspect.
However have been playing multiple simultaneous instances of Flash11.2 in Chromium watching various YouTube video feeds all morning via a weak wifi connection and can not duplicate the issue
Might not be representative of others wifi because even my weak connection is still quite fast. I still suspect the connection as a likely cause
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Hi, Juanito.
I never use flash
Really? Don't you need it to watch videos, on Youtube and elsewhere? Am I missing something here?
different browsers expect the flash library to be in different locations, so if you changed browser, you might need to create a new symlink to the flash library.
I have no idea how to do that, nor where to put it. For that matter, how does getFlash11.tcz know where to put flashplayer for each browser? Do the browsers have a config file that tells getFlashxx.tcz where to put the flashplayer files?
In any case, are you saying that I should do what the wiki says or not? I'm getting pretty confused here.
Cheers.
Mike
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Hi, Misalf.
flash11.tcz contains a start script which creates symlinks to the flash library for Minefield, Opera, SeaMonkey, FireFox and IceCat. Even if those are not installed/loaded. So there is no need to run getFlash11.tcz again for one of those browsers.
Okay, that answers my question to Juanito, at least partially.
Does Chromium come with it's own version of flash?
No, it doesn't. I had to download and run getFlash11.tcz for Chromium after I installed it. But since it won't play videos, It was suggested to me to try another browser, like Firefox. So the question was if I should delete flash11.tcz and its dependencies and reinstall it (by running getFlash11.tcz again) after downloading and installing Firefox.
It sounds from what you say like the answer is no, because the symlinks that flash11.tcz created for Firefox should still be in place, right?
But I don't feel on safe ground here, and I want to do things right (re flash) so that the Firefox vs. Chromium test makes sense (that is, that it isn't influenced by an error in the flash installation). I don't want more than one variable in this experiment <grin>.
Mike
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coreplayer2-
Lately I've been running Chromium-Browser with a getFlash created Flash11 extension without issue. I believe some time back I also briefly experienced the issue described earlier in this thread, but I feel that when flash movies stop playing the network is a likely suspect.
Sounds pretty reasonable. Switching over to Firefox (if I can get that figured out <grin>) should shed some light.
However have been playing multiple simultaneous instances of Flash11.2 in Chromium watching various YouTube video feeds all morning via a weak wifi connection and can not duplicate the issue
Might not be representative of others wifi because even my weak connection is still quite fast. I still suspect the connection as a likely cause
I'm in range of two wifi networks I can connect to, both have over 50% efficiency (35/70 in the Wifi app), yet Youtube videos in Chromium fail regardless of which network I'm connected to. Also, they fail in a strange way, like keithterrill describes: they start up okay, run for a few moments, and then fail (with an error message).
Plus I can watch the very same Youtube videos using Firefox in WinXP and Chrome in Puppy Linux, using the same two wifi connections, and, while there may be an occasional cutout for a few seconds, I don't have this problem of them completely failing right away.
So, while it's always possible that neither of my two wifi connections has the proper speed for Youtube videos, I think there's something else going on.
Mike
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It sounds like you are running out of RAM.
Remember, Core has its root filesystem in RAM, so anything downloading ( like a flash viseo ) must download to RAM.
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Gerald-
It sounds like you are running out of RAM.
That' s what it feels like. But I figured it couldn't be that because it doesn' t happen when I'm running Puppy Linux, which I believe uses even more RAM than TCL (127MB Puppy OS plus who knows what else).
Remember, Core has its root filesystem in RAM, so anything downloading ( like a flash video ) must download to RAM.
How would I test for it? I can' t add RAM to this computer, at least not easily (maybe when I'm in New York next month I can find the right SDRAM card to add). But suppose I created a big swap file on my second pendrive partition (3.7GB), would it be fast enough?
M.
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I have been installing and playing on my old PC's. Mostly with less than a gig of ram. Until I was reasonably sure that my main system(s) would not be damaged, I stuck to the old boxes.
Now with a little more understanding, and a lot of hours spent in learning over these past few weeks I booting up on my desktop. It has 3 gig of ram.
With that I installed a sound driver (alsa.tcz, alsaconf.tcz), a mixer (alsamixergui.tcz), chromium (chromium-browser.tcz), and firefox (firefox.tcz, firefox-get.tcz), as well as ntfs-3g.tcz. Then I installed flash (getflash11.tcz).
I started chromimum, logged into my account, jumped into youtube and played a couple of videos.
I am glad to report: no problems.
Therefore, I will now (maybe tomorrow) readdress this on my old boxes and see what I discover. But, I am leaning towards the explanation of limited ram. The net connection is hardwired coaxial, the speed is the same on each of my nodes. So, I doubt it is the net connection.
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I tried killing most of what was in memory on the old box. Then tried chromium, youtube.... still won't play the youtube videos on this older box. Perhaps, the nic card in this box is the problem, but the free memory has dropped to 70804. So, back to considering the small RAM as the source of my problems.
Keith L Terrill
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512MB installed memory seems to be the minimum required to play Flash video in either Chromium or Firefox
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Halfway recent versions of flashplayer may be incompatible with CPU's of a certain age.
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Hi, Keith.
I have been installing and playing on my old PC's. Mostly with less than a gig of ram.
Please let me know if you are finally able to play Youtube videos in TCL on any of them.
I am leaning towards the explanation of limited ram.
Yes, I think Gerald may be right.
M.
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coreplayer2-
512MB installed memory seems to be the minimum required to play Flash video in either Chromium or Firefox
I have 1GB of RAM on my computer, but I'm uncertain how much, if any, is free for Youtube videos.
Here's what Control Panel>System Stats>mem says with Chromium running and a Youtube page open (no video playing, obviously):
MemTotal: 1024000 kB
MemFree: 523620 kB
Buffers: 51604 kB
Cached: 211628 kB
SwapCached: 0 kB
Active: 265316 kB
Inactive: 181768 kB
Active(anon): 201668 kB
Inactive(anon): 26480 kB
Active(file): 63648 kB
Inactive(file): 155288 kB
Unevictable: 0 kB
Mlocked: 0 kB
HighTotal: 130696 kB
HighFree: 244 kB
LowTotal: 893304 kB
LowFree: 523376 kB
SwapTotal: 248176 kB
SwapFree: 248176 kB
Dirty: 0 kB
Writeback: 0 kB
AnonPages: 183912 kB
Mapped: 51884 kB
Shmem: 44300 kB
Slab: 40692 kB
SReclaimable: 22452 kB
SUnreclaim: 18240 kB
KernelStack: 1744 kB
PageTables: 1636 kB
NFS_Unstable: 0 kB
Bounce: 0 kB
WritebackTmp: 0 kB
CommitLimit: 760176 kB
Committed_AS: 620936 kB
VmallocTotal: 122880 kB
VmallocUsed: 7384 kB
VmallocChunk: 115124 kB
AnonHugePages: 0 kB
DirectMap4k: 909304 kB
DirectMap4M: 0 kB
It looks like I've got half a gigabyte free, but I don't know enough about memory to make any real sense of these figures. What do you make of them?
Also, if it is a memory problem, would a swap file or partition help?
M.
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Hi, tinypoodle.
Halfway recent versions of flashplayer may be incompatible with CPU's of a certain age.
Uh-oh, another uncertainty <grin>.
I was going to reply that I can watch Youtube videos with Firefox in WindowsXP and Chrome in PuppyLinux, but they aren't recent browsers and don't have the most recent versions of Flashplayer, so the fact that they're all using the same CPU doesn't mean much.
The weird thing is that the Youtube videos start up okay. Then they crash after about ten seconds. Doesn't really sound like a CPU issue. But, who knows?
I have yet to try the switching browsers and/or adding swap (if that's even possible), so I'm not ready to trash this old netbook.
M.
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if you have 1GB of RAM installed, then I expect the cpu wouldn't be limiting. On the other hand a system with a max RAM of 512MB might be suspect for the latest Flash Player.
In a virtual machine with single core cpu and 512MB RAM I can run flash video with sound all day long in either Chromium or firefox using Xorg or Xvesa and flash v11.2 With a little less memory Firefox will just barely run flash video but Flash in Chromium will not likely run at all.
if not a network problem, I believe a wipe and a re-install is next step. I have seen this exact problem before, but can not remember how I fixed it, neither can I duplicate it with any of my current systems. When the installation is suspect as the flash install is here, best not to keep chasing one's tail. Better bite the bullet because I'm of the opinion a fresh install done right is the most expeditious method to resolve this dilemma
edit: Wrong thread
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I just realized there appears to be two threads on this subject and I'm getting the two crossed
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coreplayer2-
I just realized there appears to be two threads on this subject and I'm getting the two crossed
They started out as two different subjects but have sort of fused.
a system with a max RAM of 512MB might be suspect for the latest Flash Player.
You mean 512MB of installed RAM, not available RAM, right?
Can you give me any feedback on the system stats for memory that I posted above? Also on my query: if it's a memory problem, would a swap file or partition help?
Thanks.
Mike
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Gerald Clark-
Since you brought up the idea of insufficient RAM (thank you), can I get you to look at the system stats for memory that I posted above and tell me if you see any obvious problems?
Also, could you reply to my query about creating a swap file or partition as a way of offsetting any RAM insufficiency there might be? (I know nothing about the making or use of swap files and partitions.)
Your advice on these issues would be appreciated.
Cheers!
Mike
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No. Chromium works fine for me with 1G RAM and no swap.
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Chromium works fine for me with 512M RAM and no swap.
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The weird thing is that the Youtube videos start up okay. Then they crash after about ten seconds. Doesn't really sound like a CPU issue.
Correct, else they would not start to play at all.
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Chromium works well for me. It is youtube within it that doesn't work. Also, I had been able to run video on Facebook in Chromium, but today that is not working. It says I need to update my flash. I have not been successful at that and will have to attempt this tomorrow.
In the mean time I was getting some stats for you:
Before loading/launching Chromium:
MemTotal: 772852 kb
MemFree: 603352 kb
After launching Chromium:
MemTotal: 772852 kB
MemFree: 417168 kB
Running facebook on Chromium:
MemTotal: 772852 kB
MemFree: 383560 kB
After closing Chromium:
MemTotal: 772852 kB
MemFree: 464876 kB
Home to find some better answers tomorrow.
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Hi, Keith.
Chromium works well for me. It is youtube within it that doesn't work.
Same here.
Also, I had been able to run video on Facebook in Chromium, but today that is not working. It says I need to update my flash. I have not been successful at that and will have to attempt this tomorrow.
I'm also able to run videos on other websites, but never very well. There may be a combination of audio plus memory issues.
In the mean time I was getting some stats for you
It doesn't look like you have a shortage of memory. Gerald Clark says it isn't a memory issue. He's probably right.
Mike
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All-
I will be absent from the forum for a while due to my trip to the States. I want to thank everyone here for your generous help. I'll be back as soon as time permits.
Cheers!
Mike