Again, I'm completely new to linux so I'm sure this is my ignorance but isn't the install process a Linux thing? I understand the app is from Adobe but the process to install seems to be a condition of the OS. Are you saying that this is not typical and that Adobe was just lazy in their packaging?
I'm seriously not antagonizing, just trying to make sure I'm informed.
Thanks
I know it's confusing but first of all linux is not an operating system, but the kernel on which several operating systems such as slackware, debian, *buntu, suse, fedora and so on are based. These operating systems implement a variety of ways to manage software packages. As most of the software they use is open source they maintain their own set of software packages, often with a few minor changes to make the software fit inside the system properly.
The adobe software you are refering to is not open source so it is hard for the makers of these operating systems to do that. And aparently adobe could only be bothered to make installable software packages for rpm based systems (such as redhat/fedora and suse etc.), and not for instance .deb packages (for debian/*buntu etc.) like you probably would have needed. Therefore the rest of us get some crappy installer script that doesn't even work most of the time, while in the end it's little more then unpacking an archive and moving one or two files to the right place if you do it manually.
Compared to the literally tens of thousands of software packages that are freely available I do not consider this mess from adobe to be representative at all. Under kubuntu (for instance) you can install most of the software you will ever need by simply selecting it from a list, no need to even download the "install files" yourself manually. Unfortunately the tools to do this conveniently (in a graphical environment) are removed under lmce, in order to to prevent updates (that could break the system) from sneaking in through the side door.
Just FYI, bkm789 recently told me how to manually install the flash player under kubuntu-amd64:
sudo apt-get install nspluginwrapper
wget http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/install_flash_player_9_linux.tar.gz
tar xvf install_flash_player_9_linux.tar.gz
sudo cp install_flash_player_9_linux/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/
sudo nspluginwrapper -i /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/libflashplayer.so
rm -rf install_flash_player_9_linux
The steps involving "nspluginwrapper" are probably not needed under i386 at all.
And I see that rrambo even found a much nicer way to do it through the adept_installer (which is normally removed under lmce).
