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Flash is everywhere on the web nowadays. From YouTube (and the myriad of other video sites), to corporate websites, to online portfolios, a web experience without Flash Player installed isn't really a complete web experience.

The problem with Flash Player is that it isn't free software or open source. Well, it's not necessarily a problem depending on your viewpoint on non-free software is, but even if you are pragmatic and do install the official Flash Player for Linux from Adobe, you have to install it manually, as most distributions don't include it by default. And installing it manually can be a pain.

For some time, the GNU Project has been working to build a free replacement for Flash Player which implements the file format so you can enjoy Flash content while using GPL'd code, which solves the pre-install problem (vendors can safely bundle GPL code) and the non-free problem. That project is called Gnash.

It is not perfect yet, in fact as you may have guessed from the title of this post, it's still only Alpha quality and only implements some of the Flash 7 standard right now. I thought I'd give the latest Alpha release a road test to see how usable it is and how much Flash content will work.

I downloaded the 0.8.1 release source code and compiled it on my Pentium 4 Kubuntu Feisty system. Once you've done the normal ./configure, make, make install routine (you will be told about any dependencies you need when you run ./configure and how to install them on most systems), you have several parts to Gnash.

There's a standalone application which will be installed (which can be launched from the command line with the command gnash). If you supply the command line application with the path to an swf file, it will do its best to play it.

I thought I'd try out the command line utility by playing good old Badger Badger Badger. To do this from the command line, I first downloaded the swf, and then fed it into Gnash:

$ wget http://badgerbadgerbadger.com/badger.swf
$ gnash badger.swf

I couldn't get any sound to play in it, but the animation played pretty much flawlessly (aside from some minor horizontal tearing) which impressed me. CPU usage did spike to around 50% during playback (this is on a 3.0 GHz system), which is a little concerning, but Flash animations are often gloriously inefficient with CPU usage even using the official player.

The other part of Gnash is the browser plugin and is probably the most important part considering that the Flash you'll be finding will be mostly, if not always, found on the web.

If you already have the official Flash Player installed in a Mozilla-compatible browser (I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.6) here, you'll need to move the libflashplayer.so file outside of the plugins directory so that Gnash will take over. Once you have done so, Gnash will handle all Flash files.

YouTube is probably the most obvious test here - so with Gnash installed and ready, I headed over there. Unfortunately, I couldn't get Gnash to play anything and the video widget just sat there with the loading animation. It's quite possible that recent updates to the YouTube widget have made it incompatible with Gnash, because the site boasts that 0.8.0 has compatibility with YouTube.

I also tried several other video sites with no success.

While FLV-based videos don't appear to be very successful with this release, pure Flash-based animations that don't use functionality specific to version 9 of the player. For example, internet cartoon Homestar Runner works pretty well under Gnash (although again, I have had no luck with sound in any of these).

Gnash is a very ambitious attempt, as the Flash format is very big and very proprietary. At the moment, at this fairly early stage of development, Gnash - from what I have seen - is only able to render reasonably simple animations and has problems with major FLV players.

If you are serious about being 100% free software and don't mind losing access to some Flash-based content, Gnash might be the right solution. At the moment though, it isn't quite at the level of a Flash replacement, even for Flash 7-based content, and I'm personally still going to be using the official Flash 9 Player.

Still, Gnash is coming along nicely considering it's started from absolutely nothing and the developers are getting no help from Adobe. If you want to check out Gnash, head over to the project page on the GNU site.

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Ubuntu Community Manager Jono Bacon has announced on his blog what the name of the Ubuntu 8.04 release will be - Hardy Heron. This version of Ubuntu, coming after Gutsy Gibbon (7.10) currently planned for October, will be a Long Term Support (LTS) release with 5 years of desktop support, not unlike previous LTS release Dapper Drake (6.06).

I am delighted to have the pleasure of announcing the Hardy Heron (Ubuntu 8.04), the next version of Ubuntu that will succeed Gutsy Gibbon (Ubuntu 7.10, due for release in October 2007). Not only will the Ubuntu community continue to do what it does best, produce an easy-to-use, reliable, free software platform, but this release will proudly wear the badge of Long Term Support (LTS) and be supported with security updates for five years on the server and three years on the desktop. We look forward to releasing the Hardy Heron in April 2008.

With the opening of each new release cycle of Ubuntu, we have more and more opportunity at our fingertips. Not only are our friends in the upstream world constantly innovating and extending their applications and software, but the Ubuntu community continues to see incredible growth in its diverse range of areas such as packaging, development, documentation, quality assurance, translations, LoCo teams and more. Each new release gives us all an opportunity to shine, irrespective of which bricks in the project we are laying, and this is at the heart of our belief - working together to produce an Operating System that will empower its users and shape the IT industry, putting free software at the corner-stone of our direction.

As mentioned already, Gutsy Gibbon, version 7.10 is due out this October and the current version of Ubuntu is 7.04, Feisty Fawn.

You can read more on Jono Bacon's blog and find out more about Ubuntu on the official site.

Note: This only applies to Ubuntu 7.10. Later releases included automatic configuration of X and as such this is no longer required.

Remember the good old days when to change a screen resolution or driver, you had to edit xorg.conf or reconfigure X.org? Those fine times are now over, or they will be, with the release of Ubuntu 7.10.

As of an update from a few days ago, users are now able to access a graphical user interface for editing xorg.conf, though only for graphic and display settings. This tool has support for dual monitors at the moment, and with the release of X.org 7.3 it will be possible to add even more. You can turn on and off both (or one) of your monitor(s), change the available resolutions, orientations, and set mirror or exteneded desktops.

On the Graphics Card tab, you have a selection of drivers and video memory. You can pick your graphics card and have it select a driver for you, or you can choose the driver yourself (useful for binary ATI/NVIDIA drivers).

The Test feature as of writing is a little buggy, but this is an alpha version still; updates will follow.

This feature is actually Ubuntu-specific at the moment, though other distributions are sure to adopt it soon. It is part of Ubuntu 7.10's "Bullet Proof X" blueprint that states, in a general sense, that if X for some reason fails to start, then it will fall back to a failsafe mode with this GUI running to help get you back on your feet.

There is much improvement to be made with X as 7.3 releases, but whether this will make it into Ubuntu 7.10 in time is another story. Feature freeze is now in effect, however it was broken for an X update once before. Whether we'll see it all depends on when it is released. Count on FOSSwire for our take on X.org 7.3 later this month or next.