I recently released an AIR application called ‘Snippet Manager‘ which was build using Flex (in a basic text editor, not Flex Builder). Today I decided to see if it would work on Linux. I’m happy to report snippet manager works just as well as it does in Windows.
Here are the steps I used to install Adobe AIR on Linux (Ubuntu).
Note: On my system, I used VM Player (the Free Virtual Machine Player) inside Windows XP. I then downloaded a Linux Ubuntu 8.10 image (I got mine from vmplanet.net).
Step 1
Download the latest Adobe AIR Installer for Linux. At the time of writing, the Adobe AIR for Linux is in Beta.
Download Adobe AIR Linux Installer
Download the Linux install file from: http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/air_linux.html
If your browser is set to download files to your desktop (FireFox default on Ubuntu), you should see something like this:
Air Installer file on Linux Desktop
Step 2
The next thing to do is find out your installer files location path. You can do this by right clicking on the file and selecting ‘Properties’. You should see something like this:
AIR Installation File Location
On my system, the file location is /home/vmplanet/Desktop/adobeair_linux_b1_091508.bin - the chances are the ‘vmplanet’ part of the path will be your own username.
Step 3 and 4
Now we need to change the file permissions (this could probably be done in the properties window, but we will do it in a terminal just to be sure!)
Open a terminal window (select terminal from the applications list). Type in the following command to change to the same directory as the installation file:
cd /home/vmplanet/Desktop
(you will probably need to change the path a little to match your own)
Now to change the file permissions, type:
chmod 777 adobeair_linux_b1_091508.bin
The final step will execute the installer file (installs Adovbe AIR). In your terminal window, type:
./adobeair_linux_b1_091508.bin
then press enter. The . (dot) at the front of your path is required!
Installing AIR on Linux Command Window
You should now have Adobe AIR installed and ready on your Linux box.
To test it out, try installing our Snippet Manager application
December 26th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Some assert that Linux’s terminal CLI is required to install Adobe AIR. Wrong!
First, install Adobe Flash 10.
Now, for AIR: Using (GNOME’s) Nautilus file manager GUI, right-click on the Adobe BIN file and check under the Properties’ Permissions tab, to allow executing the file as a program. Next, right-click and Rename the file to remove its .bin extension, so the file name is just AdobeAIRInstaller. Finally, double-click the file to run the Adobe installer, which pops open a new window, requests your authorization (password), and prompts you through the install. That’s it.
You’ll then find AIR maintenance items in the Ubuntu “Accessories” menu (or in the “Tools” menu of Mandriva Linux 2009). The .air file extension is associated with Adobe’s run-time. An AIR application can be removed via the distro RPM or DEB package manager GUI, or by double-clicking its original .air installation file.