Let Linux breathe some ‘Air’

Oye ! We’re not talking about, atmosphere. Rather about, the Adobe’s Cross platform application runtime environment – the ‘Air’. Yes, just like any other Adobe product, Air is very dynamic, interactive and easy to deploy.

Adobe Air is a means to create Rich Internet Applications – RIA as how Adobe wishes to call it. If the term Cross-platform application runtime environment is a little confusing, take it to be, Adobe Air is a means to create application that utilize all the best components of both Web-based and Desktop computing to bring rich interaction and utility to the app for the user. Of late, a lot of applications are being built in Web based environment. Some of them over Flash, while some with Flex. Deploying these applications across all other platforms, Desktop (Windows, Linux and Mac ) and Mobile ( iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone 7 ) has always been an issue to be addressed. With so many platforms and application environments, it is not easy at all, to create a run-time architecture that works in sync with all. Adobe Air is meant to eliminate that.

Many Corporate Giants have started shifting towards Adobe Air now. Adobe themselves are using it for employee directory. NASDAQ, Salesforce.com, Model Metrics are some of them using it currently. eBay also uses Air to deploy its Online Auction Application in Desktop environment.

With Air seeing development at such a fast pace, it is so disheartening to see that, Adobe has stopped development for Air in Linux. Why ? ‘Our priorities are currently towards developing the Mobile platform and the action isn’t currently in Linux.’, says adobe’s blog post. It has been over five months, since this happened. But, it was only recently that I noticed it. I wanted to install Tweetdeck, the One-for-all desktop Social Networking App, that uses Air in my 64 bit Fedora 16 Desktop. Though, Open Source Applications are great, there can never be a match to this freeware Tweetdeck. It’s convenient, easy to setup and you got so many tweaks and options to customize. But, there wasn’t any installation package or repository to do it. I desperately wanted to install Adobe Air over my Linux desktop and had finally done it.

Here’s how to do it.

Installing Adobe Air in Linux

For 32 bit

 

• Go to, Adobe Air download page, you’ll be prompted to choose the old repository. Download the Adobe air v2.6 binary file (.bin)
• Open your terminal.
• Navigate to the location where you’ve your binary file.
• Make it executable by running the following command

     chmod +x <name-of-your-adobe-air-installtion-file>.bin

• Run the file with the command

           ./<name-of-your-adobe-air-installtion-file>.bin

You’re done. You’ll have installed your application. But, would not receive any more updates. If in future, some application requires a new version of Air to run that, you wouldn’t be able to run it for sure.

For 64 bit

 

• Running Air in 64 bit computers is one heck of a job. You’ll need 32 bit libraries to do that.
• So, first, we install 32 bit libraries first. We’ll see the case of Fedora Linux.
• Open the terminal.
• Import the keys first.

 sudo rpm --import http://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/xenodecdn/RPM-GPG-KEY-rpmfusion-free-fedora-15

sudo rpm --import http://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/xenodecdn/RPM-GPG-KEY-rpmfusion-nonfree-fedora-15

• Install RPM Fusion

su -c 'yum localinstall --nogpgcheck http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm'

• Install Adobe Air Dependencies

su -c 'yum -y install ld-linux.so.2 gtk2-devel.i686 libdbus-glib-1.so.2 libhal.so.1 rpm-devel.i686 libXt.so.6 gnome-keyring-devel.i686 libDCOP.so.4 libxml2-devel.i686 nss-devel.i686 libxslt.i686 xterm rpm-build'

• If suppose, you get errors like, Adobe AIR could not be installed. Install either Gnome Keyring or KDE KWallet before installing Adobe AIR,

Run the following command

yum install libgnome-keyring.i686

• Make it executable by running the following command

  chmod +x <name-of-your-adobe-air-installtion-file>.bin

• Run the file with the command

  ./<name-of-your-adobe-air-installtion-file>.bin

Done. Great. You’ll run your Air applications now in Linux. Download your air applications and now, you’ll be able to run it with just a click !