I’ve had problems with Flash since I switched to Linux, because I foolishly chose the AMD64 version of Kubuntu. After messing around with a 32-bit chroot for awhile, I finally discovered Swiftfox, a version of Firefox compiled to use 32-bit libraries but optimized for, and compatible with, 64-bit systems. I could watch Flash movies again. Sound didn’t work, but who needs to hear them anyway? Oh, and since Macromedia never released Flash 8 for Linux, there were more and more SWF’s that I couldn’t watch. And it crashed the browser a lot.

Okay, so it totally sucked.

Even so, I was pretty disappointed after I upgraded to Swiftfox 2 and found that Flash stopped working. Imagine my surprise when I clicked on the missing plugin button and saw that Flash 9 was available. I knew Flash 9 for Linux was out, but I’ve never had the plugin search feature actually work correctly. Then, right before my eyes, Flash 9 installed, the page reloaded, and the SWF started playing. With sound. “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” came on the radio, the sun broke through the clouds of winter storms, and a chorus of angels heralded, or trumpeted, or whatever it is that choruses of angels do.

It’s almost as if big companies are starting to take Linux seriously.