How to Install Standalone Flashplayer in PCLinuxOS and other Linux Distros

Today most of the linux distros come with flash plugin preinstalled. Hence you have no problem in playing flash animations in your web browser. But the difficulty arises while playing individual (downloaded swf games, files, presentations) swf files as most of the distros don't have a standalone flashplayer.

Here is the trick to install standalone flashplayer on PCLinuxOS 2008 MiniME. This trick will work across all the distros but you have to make sure that you are installing the same version of standalone flashplayer as your flashplugin. For example, I have flashplayer plugin 9 installed on my pclos 2008 minime that's why I installed standalone swf player 9 from adobe flashplayer website. Here are the steps.

1. Install flashplayer plugin from your distro's repo or from adobe flashplayer website download section.
   
2. Download standalone flashplayer from adobe flashplayer website download section (you can download standalone flashplayer at http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html Please skip down the page to Linux Debugger and Standalone Players for Flash Developers on that page). Extract the files and copy the flashplayer binary file to /usr/bin.
   
   
3. Rightclick on a *.swf file, select openwith option. Type flashplayer in the textbox below openwith as mentioned in the screenshot below, and check the remember option.
   
   

You are done! Henceforth, you can open and play any swf file just by double clicking on it.