AIR 1.5 application issues for Linux users

Posted by: arunbluebrain on: December 23, 2008

In: AIR
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Adobe has received a few reports from Linux users having trouble running applications with AIR 1.5. Most of these cases appear related to the fact that the user had previously installed AIR applications using Adobe AIR for Linux beta we made available on Labs (an early release).

In the release notes (.pdf), Adobe mentioned that you need to reinstall versions of your AIR applications that were installed using the Adobe AIR 1.1 Linux beta.

Step by step instructions on how to do ..

On Ubuntu 7.10:

Launch “Synaptic Package Manager” from the “System” menubar (System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager)
Search for the application that you want to uninstall such as “Twhirl” or “TweetDeck”
Right click on the application in the search results, and click on “Mark for complete removal”
Click “Apply” to remove the application

On openSUSE 10.3:

Launch the system’s package manager from the start menu (Computer -> Install Software)
Search for the application that you want to uninstall such as “Twhirl” or “TweetDeck”
Remove the checkmark for the application’s package in the search results
Click the “Accept” button to remove the application

On Fedora 8:

Launch the system’s package manager from the Start menu (Applications -> Add/Remove Software)
Search for the application that you want to uninstall under the “Search” tab such as “Twhirl” or “TweetDeck”
Remove the checkmark for the application’s package in the search results
Click the “Apply” button to remove the application

How do I uninstall the Adobe AIR runtime betas on Linux?

Adobe AIR is installed as an .rpm or .deb depending on your particular system. To uninstall the runtime that was previously installed, search using your package manager (as described above) for “Adobe” or “adobe” and remove all of the packages AdobeAIR_enu”, “adobeair_enu”, “adobeair1.0-enu” or “adobeair-enu” from your system. Also remove the “adobe-certs” package from your system.

If you prefer using a terminal command line, you could do the following:

On Ubuntu 7.10 (.deb):

dpkg -l | grep “adobe”
sudo dpkg -r <AIR and adobe-certs package names found from previous command>

On openSUSE 10.3 (.rpm):

rpm -qa | grep -i “adobe”
sudo rpm -e <AIR and adobe-certs package names found from previous command>

On Fedora 8 (.rpm):

rpm -qa | grep -i “adobe”
sudo rpm -e <AIR and adobe-certs package names found from previous command>

How do I uninstall AIR 1.5 on Linux?

The easiest way to uninstall AIR from your system is through the “Adobe AIR Uninstaller” menuitem under Applications/Accessories.

Alternatively, you could search for and remove the package “adobeair1.0″ from the system (using the system’s package manager (e.g. Synaptic on Ubuntu)). If you prefer using a terminal command line, you could do the following:

On Ubuntu 7.10:

sudo dpkg -r adobeair1.0

On openSUSE 10.3:

sudo rpm -e adobeair1.0

On Fedora 8:

sudo rpm -e adobeair1.0

Do I need to reinstall all of my AIR applications installed using the AIR 1.1 beta runtime before they will work on Adobe AIR 1.5 for Linux?
Yes. AIR Applications installed using the beta version of Adobe AIR 1.1 for Linux must be reinstalled before they will run on Adobe AIR 1.5 for Linux.Do I need to remove data saved by previous installations of my AIR applications, for them to work with AIR 1.5?
Yes, this data needs to be cleaned up when transitioning to Adobe AIR 1.5. You can do this by removing the folders “.appdata”, “.adobe/AIR” and “.macromedia/Flash_Player/www.macromedia.com/bin/air*” from your home directory ($HOME). Do note that this will remove passwords and other saved data stored by AIR applications and will need to be entered again.

How do I uninstall my Adobe AIR applications on Linux?
Adobe AIR applications are installed as a native package (.rpm or .deb) on Linux. To uninstall an AIR application on Linux, use your system’s package manager to search for and remove the application that you want to uninstall.

How do I uninstall AIR applications installed with AIR 1.5 on Linux?
Uninstall AIR applications exactly the way you would uninstall other applications on your system. The procedure is the same as outlined at the beginning of this post.

Why am I unable to install an AIR application through an install badge on a web page?
You will need to get the latest version of the Flash Player (10.0.15.3) to install AIR applications through an install badge.

Download the latest version from the Flash Player download page.

Will AIR run on newer versions of Linux distributions? For example, Adobe AIR’s system requirements say Ubunutu 7.10, but I am running 8.10.
While we have not tested fully against newer versions of these distributions, we believe AIR should run fine in most cases. If you run into an issue, please send us a bug description using our feedback form and we will look into addressing it in a future version. For a list of our supported Linux distributions, please see our System Requirements page.

Will AIR run on Linux distributions not listed in your system requirements? For example, Red Hat Enterprise Linux?
Although we focused testing AIR against Fedora 8, Ubuntu 7.10, and openSUSE 10.3, it’s likely that AIR will run on other Linux distributions as well. For more information on the libraries required by AIR, see the Packages required to run Adobe AIR 1.5 for Linux technote. For a list of our supported Linux distributions, please see our System Requirements page.

However, we thought we’d try and provide step by step instructions on how to do this and answer a few other questions that we have heard from Linux users.