Howto: Install Adobe Air on Linux (Ubuntu/Fedora)

Adobe Air actually gives quite a few nice possibilities to users (nevermind all the problems it might cause…). Nice and handsome applications which take away a lot of the old hassle of using the browser for tasks instead for surfing. So installing Air on a system seems like a good idea, especially as there actually exists a Linux version of it.

Unfortunately Adobe had the bad idea of providing not .deb or .rpm files, but instead an executable .bin on their site. On the one hand this is good because it should be able to run on different distributions then. On the other hand the provided help (doubleclick on the .bin) doesn’t help at all. It just doesn’t work. If you click, it normally exactly nothing will happen.

The file first has to be made executable. No problem for experienced users, lots of problems for the new crowd. Or at least many of them think it would be a problem.

What we do:

1. Download the Adobe Air runtime as a .bin from Adobe.com (the download should appear as the right one for your OS on the page)

2. Open the terminal (Yes! The dreaded terminal!)

3. Open the folder in which the downloaded file is stored. If it is on the desktop lets go there

cd Desktop

Good old cd, how I miss you in this graphic-interfaced world…

4. Now we have to make the file executable. For that we use chmod. I assume you are now in the folder in which the .bin is.

chmod x+u AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

Yup, that’s it. Now you can click on it and start it.

5. If that doesn’t work try typing in

./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

and presto! the Installation should start. After it is installed you can open .air files from the net and they will install as programs on your system.

The Alternative Way (doesn’t work for everyone):

Okay, there is another way as well for all the people who don’t like the CLI. (blasphemers! 😛 )

1. Rightclick on the downloaded AdobeAirInstaller.bin file

2. In the appearing menu select Properties

3. Select the tab Permissions

4. Click the box in front of “Allow executing file as program”

5. Now doubleclick the file and it should start. If it doesn’t then back to the terminal. Go to the right folder and type in

./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin