I just stumbled across a news story which mentioned that a pre-release of Flash Player 9 for Linux would likely be available before the end of this year and the full release could be expected by early 2007. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but I have mixed feelings about this. I’m annoyed with sites that needlessly put content into Flash. I’m even more annoyed with Adobe for skipping Flash 8 for Linux. I’m thoroughly annoyed with sites which require Flash 8 (or presumably, higher) in order to work properly. That said, I’m glad that Adobe is working on Flash 9 for Linux so I can go back to being annoyed at viewing content in Flash rather than going to a site, seeing that it requires Flash, being annoyed, and then being perturbed that I can’t view it with my version.
I read on Penguin.swf’s blog a few days ago that the Linux Flash development effort was going not-so-great. (S)he did have encouraging words to say about audio/video synchronisation, which has some … umm … issues in the current Flash 7 for Linux.
To be precise, that's Flash 9 for x86 Linux -- probably 32-bit only for now. To people using Linux on any of the many other platforms available, this barely qualifies as support. :)
Thanks for that clarification. I believe you are correct on all counts. If Adobe would like to release the source, I'm sure there are some individuals out there willing to compile it and get it working on non-x86, non-32-bit platforms. And to your point, I guess that what the x86, 32 bit folks will be receiving (and currently are receiving) probably qualifies as "barely support" as well.
Why not try Flash Player 9 beta for Linux? It seems to work well though 64-bit support still doesn't exist as I see it. I created a post about it here. http://tech.mikelopez.info/2006/11/03/flash-player-9-for-linux/