OpenSUSE 11.2 32 bit is installed with nspluginwraper by default. Why?

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1

Hi,

I Wonder why nspluginwrapper is installed on a 32 bit openSUSE system by default. It does not cause too many problems but at least the xine-browser-plugin and the acrobat reader plugin seem to work better without it.

I thought the only reason for nspluginwrapper was to run 32 bit plugins on a 64 bit system, but then why does a 32 bit version even exist?

–
kind regards, wouter…

2

I think the short answer is that it is included in the openSUSE-11.2-Oss repository, marked for installation with the repository being added for you during the openSUSE initial installation. I am sure that Netscape, was still a contender when this was done and it has never been undone since. Perhaps you could detail how this affects the operation of the acrobat reader and xine plugin into Firefox?

Thank You,

3

It’s not required in 32bit
Don’t know why it’s added by default

4

Hi James,

Thanks for your answer. Previously I found that xine-browser-plugin from the packman repository did not work in the wrapper and now that I’ve switched to VLC (from the videolan repo with the plugin vlc-mozillaplugin-1.0.6-1.15.i586) I see that that one also works without the wrapper. With wrapper they both just show a grey rectangle instead of the video.

The acrobat plugin tended to leave acrobat in a <defunct> state. This made text entry in Firefox in the search box and text entry fields very slow. Advantage was that I could get rid of the defunct process by killing the parent wrapper. After uninstalling nspluginwrapper the first time I opened a PDF with Firefox it showed a License Agreement from Adobe. Maybe thats what caused the defunct state. It did not appear with the wrapper installed.

With the flash plugin I found that somtimes when viewing videos I had to press <Alt> + <Tab> to see the movie after switching to full screen mode. This is not necessary without the nspluginwrapper.

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kind regards, wouter koersen

5

Thanks for the information wrkn, I searched for nspluginwrapper and uninstalled two applications which claimed to work with Netscape. I use 64 bit and had not observed the problems you mention, but there is no reason to support Netscape as far as I know and so I uninstalled both applications. Thanks for the heads up on the subject.

Thank You,

6

On 2010-07-08 02:06 GMT jdmcdaniel3 wrote:

>
> I think the short answer is that it is included in the
> openSUSE-11.2-Oss repository, marked for installation with the

I have had it in 11.0 and older.

No idea why, but it is there, installed, 32 bits. The “advantage” is
that if the plugin dies (and it does now and then) I can kill the
wrapper and continue.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” GM (Minas Tirith))

7

[QUOTE=wrkn;2186216]Hi James,

The acrobat plugin tended to leave acrobat in a <defunct> state. This made text entry in Firefox in the search box and text entry fields very slow. Advantage was that I could get rid of the defunct process by killing the parent wrapper. After uninstalling nspluginwrapper the first time I opened a PDF with Firefox it showed a License Agreement from Adobe. Maybe thats what caused the defunct state. It did not appear with the wrapper installed.

I found out that acroread ends in a <defunct> state whether I use nspluginwrapper or not, so now I prefer to use nspluginwrapper on my 32 bit system. I use it daily to read my newspaper and when it stops responding I can get things working again by typing “pkill npviewer.bin”.