Installing Adobe AIR 2.6 in Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit

10May/1253

Installing Adobe AIR 2.6 in Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit

Like the title says. Installing Adobe Air natively on Ubuntu 12.04. With 64-bits. Not 32.

If you like programs like Tweetdeck, Destroy Twitter, WriteOrDie, the Wikipedia Desktop app, etc. you will need the abomination known as Adobe Air. And if you use Ubuntu, especially a newer version, installing Adobe Air is not easy or simple. Adobe quit supplying a Linux version a while back, and there hasn't been anything to replace it... we've been stuck trying to crutch along the older version. Thankfully, most Air apps don't require newer versions of Air.

To pull this off, we're going to need the last Linux version of Adobe Air, and a nifty little tool called "getlibs-all". Oh yeah, and Ubuntu 12.04 installed on a computer.

First, go to Adobe's archived Air files and grab Adobe AIR 2.6.0 Linux (15.4 MB). Next, grab the file getlibs-all.deb right here. The guy who wrote it doesn't seem to be hosting it anymore, and it's not a huge program, just extremely useful for finding 32-bit libraries for a 64-bit system. You can right-click "getlibs-all.deb" and open with Gdebi Package Manager, and click Install. So far, so good.

Next, you need to make sure to install libhal-storage1, lib32nss-mdns, and libgnome-keyring0 if it's not installed. Open a terminal and run:

sudo apt-get install libhal-storage1 libgnome-keyring0 lib32nss-mdns

It should ask you to install (Y/n) if they're not already there. Let them install, and rejoice. Now, we need to install all the missing 32-bit libraries that it will need. You can't get these from apt-get unless you know what they all are. Simply use the following commands:

(Note! Since I wrote this, libgnome-keyring0 has been updated to a newer version!)

sudo getlibs -l libhal-storage.so.1 sudo getlibs -l libgnome-keyring.so.0.1.1

Or possibly, if you've updated libgnome-keyring:

sudo getlibs -l libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0

For each one, it will ask if you want to install (a lot of) libraries. Let them all download and install, and we're almost done! Next, we link a couple of libraries (they're there, but not where Air is looking for them). Run the following:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libgnome-keyring.so.0 /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0

And then run the actual Air installer. In a terminal, cd to the directory you stored "AdobeAIRInstaller.bin" in and run this:

chmod +x ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin sudo ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

You should get the standard "Installing" messages, and Air should install with no problem! Enjoy!

I got most of the information here from Adobe's help site, with a little poking prodding and research to put all the rest of the pieces together.

Posted by Jeff Hendricks

Tagged as: adobe air on ubuntu 12.04, air for linux, linux Leave a comment

Comments (53) Trackbacks (3) ( subscribe to comments on this post )

Oriel
May 20th, 2012 - 07:10

thanks! It was very usefully
thegeeknme
June 2nd, 2012 - 10:24

Perfect! The library ‘linking’ is the only thing that was holding me up on installing Adobe Air Mint 13 (based on 12.04) 32bit. All the other reqs were already in place.

Thanks for taking the time to write it up and share!
Sarah
July 1st, 2012 - 07:18

Thanks so much–only started using Ubuntu yesterday and managed to get AIR installed with this step by step guide!
Jeff
July 1st, 2012 - 07:49

You’re welcome, took a little effort, but it works! Thanks for reading.
Brian_I
July 6th, 2012 - 03:32

Thanks for this handy walkthrough, Jeff.

I’ve recently installed Xubuntu 12.04, and I am working through getting my photography tools installed. I had been stumbling over Adobe AIR until I found this blog!
Syrus Bajracharya
July 10th, 2012 - 00:48

Followed The Steps One By One & Was Able To Install AIR files without further hassles. Magic !!

Thanks Much!!
Edward
July 17th, 2012 - 08:27

Change the line

getlibs -l libgnome-keyring.so.0.1.1

into

getlibs -l libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0

Newer version is available!
reorx
July 18th, 2012 - 06:16

Please replenish: On Kubuntu 12.04, I get error message “not allowed” when installing with sudo. If I instead run the installer without sudo, and then enter my password when prompted (needs administrator privileges), it works.
Jeff
July 22nd, 2012 - 13:23

As Edward pointed out, libgnome-keyring0 has a newer version, so check and see if you have 1.1 or 2.0! I’ll add a note to the post. Thanks!
Thomas Svenson
August 1st, 2012 - 11:15

Thanks for an awesome and easy tutorial. Took me less than five minutes to get Air installed and working.
Gordon Radlein
August 2nd, 2012 - 02:06

Good lord this was helpful. Thank you.
Edgar Hernandez
August 13th, 2012 - 15:01

De verdad funciona. Gracias.
Peter Cossey
August 15th, 2012 - 06:34

Nice write-up. I followed it to the letter and everything worked as expected, thanks!
Chris
August 22nd, 2012 - 03:41

Thanks a lot!!!! Works like a charm! One more happy human
chihab
August 26th, 2012 - 23:15

chmod: impossible d’accéder à «./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin»: Aucun fichier ou dossier de ce type
what can i do ? help plz
Jeff
August 27th, 2012 - 18:37

Have you tried “sudo chmod a+x ./AdobeAirInstaller.bin” ?
Samer
September 13th, 2012 - 23:56

I recently installed Ubuntu 12.04.1 and found that the gnome keyring was already installed as were the 32 bit libs (perhaps from another install?). I only needed to install libhal-storage1 and lib32nss-mdns and create the link. There was no need to use getlibs. AIR installed with no problem. I was then able to install Pandora One and Balsamiq Mockups.
randomdrake
September 15th, 2012 - 17:47

Worked like a charm. Thanks much!
fikri
September 18th, 2012 - 08:54

thanks it works………..
Manish Lalwani
September 19th, 2012 - 13:56

it worked for me as well thanks………
James
September 23rd, 2012 - 08:22

Thank you very much for this post, got Air installed with no fuss! A great accomplishment!
Some One
October 12th, 2012 - 04:23

Thank you, it worked
James
October 17th, 2012 - 03:37

Fantastic article…thanks
Felipe 'chronos' Prenholato
October 23rd, 2012 - 07:20

Thanks! Works good .
Gustavo Zaera Holo
November 12th, 2012 - 03:21

Thanks a lot, works well!
Jeff
November 14th, 2012 - 18:10

Thanks for the comments. Makes me happy to know people find it useful!
Hidayat
November 16th, 2012 - 04:50

Thanks a lot, it’s very usefull
Jay Alvarez
December 5th, 2012 - 11:25

Brilliant! I’ve been looking for good instructions for half an hour before finding yours. They were very clear, comprehensive and it worked! thank you very much.
JK Lee
December 10th, 2012 - 07:33

Thanks My Hero!! It works +_+
Diego Mercado
December 13th, 2012 - 16:13

Great post!!
zorlac
December 15th, 2012 - 05:40

Thanks a lot from french linux user !!! it works great
justen
December 17th, 2012 - 12:12

Thanks! These instructions worked fine with 12.10. I did get a warning about lib32nss-mdns not being available, and libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0 saying I already had the newest version.

I followed the instructions, ignoring the warnings, and everything works. I suspect I already had some of the requirement installed for some reason.

uname -a
Linux ubuntu 3.5.0-21-generic #32-Ubuntu SMP Tue Dec 11 18:52:46 UTC 2012 i686 i686 i686 GNU/Linux

I’m using Air to use Zinio reader (digital magazines). Runs fine on my Xeon workstation, but is slow as molasses in January on my little ol’ Atom netbook.
Arnaud C. Aurejac-Davis
December 21st, 2012 - 14:52

Thanks a lot. All the process worked fine to the end. Using Ubuntu 12.04. Merry Xmas and all the best for 2013! From France.
Jeremy
January 11th, 2013 - 11:40

Wow, I never would have been able to get that working myself. Thanks so much
Howard Close
January 19th, 2013 - 10:00

Thank you so much for this. Apparently Adobe Air is needed to download programs from BBC website but instructions for Linux users are non-existent there. This worked beautifully on Linux Mint 14 64-bit.
Wanderson Acassio Gomes
January 19th, 2013 - 16:36

Thank you so much!!!
antonio
January 20th, 2013 - 19:31

Thanks so much, I wouldn’t do by myself
Rob
February 16th, 2013 - 00:40

Hallelujah!!!!
Thank you for this.Seems to be installing great. Ubuntu really do need to sort this issue as Air is becoming as ubiquitous as Reader.
Thank you again
mojo706
February 16th, 2013 - 13:18

Woop woop 2013 and still useful. Thank you very much!
shebzee
February 22nd, 2013 - 12:46

i have linux mint maya 32 bit will this work? if not what will?
Jeff
February 22nd, 2013 - 19:16

Mint is based on Debian just like Ubuntu, so yes, it will work. If it’s 32 bit, you won’t need to use getlibs for the 32 bit libraries.
Cristobal Ortiz-Ortiz
February 27th, 2013 - 05:07

thanks a lot it worked very nice on my ubuntu 12.04 X64 cheers
Alice
March 17th, 2013 - 12:49

Thanks so so much, it’s perfect for my ubuntu 12.04 x64! I’m searching for this for hours!
Ivan
March 30th, 2013 - 04:42

I run sudo ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin command and get the next error.
/tmp/air.SbGiSM/setup: error while loading shared libraries: libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Any sugestions
Ivan
March 30th, 2013 - 04:44

^^ I run LMDE 201303. cinnamon edition
Jeff Hendricks
March 30th, 2013 - 19:04

It’s looking for a library that’s not there (or in a different place). You can try searching for that file, and make a symlink to it in /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu
Eric Allan
April 1st, 2013 - 12:06

Thanks for posting this! Worked great for someone who is migrating from windows to Ubuntu for the first time!
Jeff Hendricks
April 2nd, 2013 - 10:59

I didn’t realize Zinio had a desktop reader, I’ve been using it with the web reader for a while. Thanks for letting us know, I’ll have to check it out!
Damien Benon
April 4th, 2013 - 09:08

Perfect, thanks a lot.
chlorophylle
April 6th, 2013 - 06:57

Thanks a lot !!!
Nora
April 18th, 2013 - 18:12

I followed these instructions and got an error after running ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin. Here’s the error: Gtk WARNING **: cannot open display. An answer to a question about this on AksUbuntu (a StackExchange site) has the solution. http://askubuntu.com/a/143845/150443
Pawel
April 29th, 2013 - 16:23

Thank you! It really saved me loads of time.
Meris
May 1st, 2013 - 10:04

Worked like charm, but the package of getlibs you pointed to will not install manpages. On installation Ubuntu Software Center refuses to install it, because the package does not specify size_installed. You can choose to ignore that warning, but I think it should be mentioned, because it might confuse newer users.