Flash and Unity Browser Games Guide

Due to Updates in Firefox, Flash and Unity plugins no longer work in PlayOnLinux.
Some games can still run via Pipelight (Uses Wine Staging)

Here is a step-by-step guide on installing Unity via Pipelight: GamersOnLinux

Since Adobe has decided not to support Linux with flash player and there is still a demand for Flash gaming, there is still a way to play your favorite online games with PlayOnLinux.
Facebook game are available again and enjoy any flash game until Flash Player is obsolete when HTML5 is the standard.

Follow my step-by-step guide on installing, configuring and optimizing Flash Player and Unity Player in Linux with PlayOnLinux.

Note: This guide applies to Firefox Adobe Flash Player and Unity Player. I did not test Chrome or Internet Explorer, so they may require additional steps.

Tips & Specs

To learn more about PlayOnLinux and Wine configuration, see the online manual: PlayOnLinux Explained

Mint 14 32-bit
PlayOnLinux: 4.2.1
Wine: 1.7.4

Wine Installation

Click Tools
Select "Manage Wine Versions"

Look for the Wine Version: 1.7.4
Select it
Click the arrow pointing to the right

Click Next

PlayOnLinux will automatically download it and save it in this directory:
/home/username/.PlayOnLinux/wine/linux-x86

Note: username is where you put your login name

Its a good idea to backup this directory to another computer because you won't have to keep downloading wine versions when you need them.

Extracting

Downloading Gecko

Installed

Wine 1.7.4 is installed and you can close this window

Download Firefox for Windows

Go to: www.mozilla.com

Download Firefox and save it to your desktop
!Make sure you click System and Languages!
Otherwise you will download the Linux version

Save Firefox to you desktop

Update:
Or try Portable Nightly versions:
https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/nightly/

Extract to your desktop
After creating your virtual drive copy/paste the Firefox folder to your /home/username/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/firefox/drive_c/Program Files/

Setup PlayOnLinux

Launch PlayOnLinux
Click Install

Click "Install a non-listed program"

Click Next

Note: If you are running a 64-bit system, PlayOnLinux will prompt if you want to use a 64-bit or 32-bit virtual drive. Always select 32-bit virtual drive.

Select "Install a program in a new virtual drive"
Click Next

Name your virtual drive: firefox
Click Next

Check all three options:

• Use another version of Wine
• Configure Wine
• Install some libraries

Click Next

Select Wine 1.7.4
Click Next

Note: If you are running a 64-bit system, PlayOnLinux will prompt if you want to use a 64-bit or 32-bit virtual drive.
Always select 32-bit virtual drive.

Wine Configuration

Applications Tab
Windows Version: Windows 7
Click Apply

Graphics Tab
Check "Automatically capture the mouse in full-screen windows"
Check "Emulate a virtual desktop
Desktop size: Set to match your Linux desktop resolution
Click Ok

Installing Windows Libraries

Select these packages:

• POL_Install_corefonts
• POL_Install_d3dx9
• POL_Install_tahoma
• POL_Install_registered fonts

Note: Check only the basic font libraries, don't check Flash Player. All libraries will automatically download and install.
Click Next

Installing Firefox

Click Browse

Navigate to your desktop
Select Firefox Setup XX.0.exe
Click Open

Click Next

Firefox extracting

Firefox installer

Click Next

Check Standard
Click Next

Check "Use Firefox as my default web browser"
Click Install

Uncheck "Launch Firefox now"
Click Finish

PlayOnLinux shortcut

Select Firefox.exe
Click Next

Name your shortcut: Firefox
Click Next

Select "I don't want to make another shortcut"
Click Next

Downloading Flash Player

Unfortunately Firefox has a problem downloading files, so use your Linux web browser.

Download the current Flash Player from this direct link:
http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player...ms-flash-player-windows.html#main-pars_header

Scroll down to...
Still having problems?
If you are still having trouble installing Adobe Flash Player, try downloading the installer directly from the following sites:

• Flash Player for Internet Explorer - ActiveX
• Flash Player for Firefox - NPAPI
• Flash Player for Opera and Chromium-based browsers - PPAPI

Click Flash Player for Firefox - NPAPI
Save Flash Player to your desktop

Note: Downloading Flash Player from Adobe results in an error every time you try to install it.

Installing Flash Player

Back to PlayOnLinux
Click Configure

Select your firefox shortcut
Click Miscellaneous Tab
Click "Run a .exe in this virtual drive"

Navigate to your desktop
Select Install_flash_player.exe

Check terms
Click Install

Flash Player is installed
Click Done

Installing Unity

Download Unity Web Player Full: http://webplayer.unity3d.com/download_webplayer-3.x/UnityWebPlayerFull.exe
Save to your desktop

Back to PlayOnLinux
Click Configure
Select the firefox shortcut
Click Miscellaneous Tab
Click "Run a .exe in this virtual drive"

Navigate to your desktop
Select UnityWebPlayerFull.exe
Click Open

Click "I Agree"

Installing

Finished

Updating Unity

When you launch a Unity game in Firefox there may be an error
"Failed to update Unity Web Player"

Click "Error details"
Take note of the update address
http://webplayer.unity3d.com//Channels/795a449bc926/UnityPlayer3.x.x-win32.zip
Depending on the version of Unity the game was made with, the zip file will show the version to update with.
Ex: 2.x.x-win32.zip or 3.x.x-win32.zip

Note: I recommend doing this update before launching Firefox the first time because most games are running Unity 3.x.x or higher

Use your Linux browser to download this update
Save it to your desktop
Open with Archive manager
firefox39.png

Extract to this long directory:
/home/username/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/firefox/drive_c/users/username/AppData/LowcalLow/Unity/WebPlayer/player/Stable3.x.x

Note: username is where you put your Linux login name

Click Extract

Click Replace for existing files

The last step is fooling the updater to think we have the current Unity Upates installed.
Even though we alreay installed the updates, the player will still check a plist file and if it doesn't show the correct update, then the error starts all over again.

Navigate to the Unity folder again
/home/username/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/firefox/drive_c/users/username/AppData/LowcalLow/Unity/WebPlayer/

There are 3 directories:

• loader
• mono
• player

Open the player directory
Open the Stable3.x.x direcotry
Open info.plist
Right-click and open with a text editor like gedit

Also open the info.plist from the loader directory
Right-Click and open with a text editor like gedit

The XML should be different in both files.
The updated version should appear like this

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<plist>
<dict>
<key>CFBundleVersion</key>
<string>3.5.7f6</string>
<key>UnityBuildNumber</key>
<string>795a449bc926</string>
<key>monoVersion</key>
<string>3.x.x</string>
<key>monoMinimumRevision</key>
<string>3.5.7f6</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Copy and paste the stable version into the loader version
Do the same for the info.plist in the mono/Stable3.x.x directory too

All three info.plist files should both be identical
Save all three files and close your text editor.

Note: You may need to do this with each update you try to apply to Unity.
For now, most games run with 3.x.x


Launching Firefox

Back to PlayOnLinux
Select Firefox
Click Run

Check "Don't import anything"
Click Next

Click yes for the default browser pop-up

To verify that Flash and Unity Plugins are installed
Click Firefox
Click Add-ons

or

Click Tools
Click Add-ons

Click Plugins
Shockwave Flash current version should appear on the list
Mine was Version 11.9.900.117
Unity Version 4.2 should also be on the list

Now login to Facebook.com and launch your favorite game.

Conclusion:
Most games seemed to run just fine as they do in Windows. A few ran slow like Jurassic Park and others didn't run at all. But the current Flash Player is installed and should give you more success than not playing at all.

Unity player was able to play most games with the 3.x.x update, but some older Unity games required 2.x.x and I needed to download that version and extract to play them. Applying the 2.x.x update breaks newer Unity games, so make note of which games you want to play and update accordingly.

Some Unity games still would not play because of communication with video drivers.
Most Unity games played just fine, but I did have some trouble with fullscreen settings and mouse-look. I found that unchecking the "Automatically capture the mouse in full-screen windows" in Wine Configuration fixed this problem.

Screenshots:

 

High Res Screenshots

Flash Games











Unity Games

 

Good post, but Unity don't up

 

Yeah, Unity was an absolute pain to get running in PlayOnLinux. Took me a lot of trial-n-error.
Remember you have to get the newest version of Unity web player.

Are you able to play any other games?
What distro are you using?
What video card does your computer have?

 

There are always updates to the Unity 3D browser plugin and Flash player plugin.
If developers properly update their games with the newest plugin, it may break this guides.

If a game doesn't run, try updating Flash player and Unity 3D, but remember it might break older games that have not applied the update yet.

 

An update on the Unity3D plug-in. I don't know about others but I get the "Failed to update Unity Web Player". These current instructions no longer bypass it, and the directory structure and location has changed. The plugin downloads all have version mismatches and the installers don't even install anymore.

(PLEASE READ ALL OF THE FOLLOWING! IT WORKS AND UPDATES!) Your best bet now is to use an older version:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080729225255/unity3d.com/unity-web-player-2.x

Then play a game that requires 3.x.x version of the plugin. Click "Activate Plugin" and tell Firefox to "Allow" the plugin. After the game finishes loading, the Unity3D web plugin will have secretly updated itself to version 3.x.x, although it'll always say it's old.

A little more info on Wine if you're interested: https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=31179

 

Thank you for the update MajorLunaC! I knew this would eventually happen because Unity and Flash are constantly changing machines.
I don't mind using an older version, but I'll also mess around with the newer version and see if there is any way to get it working.

Thanks again!

 

What version of Firefox did you use?
I'm using version 36 and it seems to be crashing when javascripts are running in the background. I can't even get a Unity game started because the page won't finish loading

 

Sorry for the late response, I don't think I got an email for this. Lucky I came by for updates.

31.5.0 ESR Found here -> http://download-origin.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/

I can test out any specific games, in case compatibility changed.

 

Ah, ok, I'll try it as well.
Did you ever try Firefox 36?
I'm concerned the the newer versions will have problems in Wine.

 

I don't try the newer Firefox versions because they're completely different in layout and it's hard to change them to a classic or even comfortable layout. They're stupidly trying to clone Chrome. The normal versions are also unstable. The ESR series is much more stable and secure. I just hope they don't just copy everything from the main line.

 

Thanks for this confirmation. I always suspected Mozilla was copying Chrome and changing stuff behind the scenes.
I'll definitely try out Firefox 35.

 

Just as a side note, I can try out those games to see if they still work. (Translation: Now that I take a good look at those screenshots, they are amazing! Where are those games!? I want them!)

 

some of those games were features on the Unity 3D website. They had a gallery of web-based games and demos. I'm having a hard time playing the demos: http://unity3d.com/showcase
Scroll down and check them out...

By the way, I tried Firefox 31 and still had problems loading pages.

 

Hmmm, the best I can recommend is viewing the crash reports to figure out what's wrong:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/k...ozilla+Crash+Reporter#w_viewing-crash-reports

Apart from that, you can make sure Flash is up to date, and use NoScript and AdBlockPlus Plugins fro firefox. You can just enable javascripts one by one to see which is breaking things, and see if you really need it (enable all but that one).

 

Ah, I didn't know about AdBlockPlus, that should fix my problem. Thanks!

 

MajorLunaC - I'm trying to play DeadFrontier.com and I followed my own guide here on downgrading to Unity web player 4, but Firefox is still showing Unity 5 in the Plugins area.

 

Nevermind, I downloaded Unity Web Player 4 from here: http://unity-web-player.software.informer.com/download/

And it worked!