Using Youtube on Older Machines

[raysr11]

I installed Linux Lite 1.0.8 on a Emachines T2341.  I can't get any videos to work.  No YouTube or embedded videos.  I'm thinking that maybe the computer itself.  The video will start to work, a black screen, then will quickly disappear.  The old computer is very hard to find a video card that will work, ddr.  I installed Lite on a brand new 160 G HHD.  It was very speedy at first then I let Lite upgrade and it became very slow and sticky after that.

I have Lite installed on and older Acer small laptop and it works great on it.  Does anyone have any ideas how I can get Lite to work better?

[Valtam]

It will just be that the pc won't be able to handle video under linux, can you post some details about your video chipset.

[gold_finger]

Adobe discontinued support for older hardware under Linux in its newer versions of the flashplugin.  To get flash videos to play on those systems, you need to revert back to using an older version of flashplugin.

First you need to confirm that that is the problem in your case.  (Did quick lookup on your system and looked like it may have Athlon 2200+ processor.  If that's the case, then this will apply to you.)  Open a terminal and run the following command:

Code:

cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep flags

Look in the output for anything with "sse" in it.  You are looking specifically to see if "sse2" is listed?  If it is NOT listed and you only see "sse", then you need to use an older version of the flashplugin.

*  Open Synaptic Package Manager (Menu -> System -> Install/Remove Software).
*  Click "Status" along lower left, then "Installed" in upper left section
*  Let the search box along top finish indexing itself.
*  When it's done, type in the "Quick filter" box flash
*  One of the listings will likely be "flashplugin-installer"
*  Click the green box next to that and select "Mark for Complete Removal", then hit "Apply" up top.

##UPDATE##
NB: You can now do (only on Linux Lite 2.0 and above):

Code:

sudo apt-get install flashplugin-legacy

in a terminal AFTER you have removed flashplugin-installer.

For versions 1.0.8 and below of Linux Lite, download flashplugin-legacy from here - http://repo.linuxliteos.com/linuxlite/po...e_i386.deb 64bit from here - http://repo.linuxliteos.com/linuxlite/po..._amd64.deb

Now go to this tutorial and skip down to section labeled "For latest flashplugin from Adobe's site:" and follow instructions for getting and installing old flashplugin.
How to Fix Flash Video Problems on Older Computers

Read "Additional Note" and "Edit" near bottom of tutorial page for additional info. when done.

Older systems will still struggle a bit to play flash videos, especially high quality and/or in full-screen mode -- so just be aware of that.

Another option for getting better viewing performance from your older hardware when watching videos on youtube (only youtube) is to use a program called SMTube.  It will stream the video from youtube to play through one of your video players (bypassing flash completely).  Follow simple instructions here for installing it:
http://smplayer.sourceforge.net/en/smtube

It will show up under Menu -> Multimedia.  When you first open it, look along the bottom of the interface and click the settings button.  Change the default player it uses to VLC; otherwise it will try to use MPlayer, which is not installed in Linux Lite.  Once that is done, just double-click a video to play it; or right-click and choose "Play".  The very first video will take 10+ seconds to start because program is accessing and starting the VLC player first.  After that, rest of them will start more quickly.  Think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how well videos play with this -- even higher quality videos in full screen mode!

[raysr11]

Thank you for the help.  I'll try it tomorrow.

[Valtam]

Solution stickied, cheers gold_finger

[Valtam]

I'm thinking of creating a 'flashplugin-legacy' package that would take care of playing flash on older machines. But for this to happen I need a volunteer to test on a machine that only has the 'sse' cpu flag. Hope to hear back from someone.

[gold_finger]

I've got one to test it on whenever you're ready.

[Valtam]

Thank you gold_finger.

Please completely remove the shipped plugin first.

The file is here - https://www.freecinema2022.gq/files/flashp...uxlite.deb

Please read the warning before installing, and when you go to youtube to test, you will see a warning like this:



Click on 'Activate Abobe Flash' to continue the test.
Look forward to your feedback

[gold_finger]

I should have asked this before, but it didn't cross my mind until now.

Does it matter which LL version I test it on?

I can install and test on both 1.0.6 & 1.0.8 if necessary.

[Valtam]

1.0.8 is fine thanks, don't forget to completely uninstall the shipped flash version first