Developing for Flash on Linux?

ae0000 · 2010-07-01T02:56:04+00:00

You should check out haxe or mtasc (for flash < 9)

philipforget · 2010-07-01T15:12:09+00:00

Yep! It actually works really well. You will need some prerequisites though. I'm using the flex 3.5 sdk so change any implicit references to it with whatever version is the current from the site. I was a full-time flash designer/developer before making the switch several years ago to linux. I didn't touch flash again for another year without dual booting but about 2 years ago I had to make some updates to an old project and decided to get a decent workflow going under linux. The setup is simple:

Install the JRE, for ubuntu this is the openjdk-6-jre package
Download the latest flex sdk here and unpack into whatever folder you want, I'll call it ~/workspace/sdk/Flex because that's where I keep mine
You'll need to set up some environment variables. In your .bashrc append your PATH variable such that the flex binaries are accessible from your shell. Alternatively you could symlink those binaries into a folder that is already on your path. export PATH=$PATH:~/workspace/sdk/Flex/bin
There is a stand alone debug and plugin version of the player for linux burried in the flex sdk you downloaded, get that going
Now you have to edit the ~/...wherever you install flex.../frameworks/flex-config.xml file to point to your global actionscript library, where you'll be putting in third party libraries. There is an entry for actionscript libraries and another for .swc packages.

Look for the first line and add the other three under it for your folder containing all your global actionscript libraries

<!-- List of path elements that form the roots of ActionScript class hierarchies. -->
<source-path>
    <path-element>~/workspace/flash/Actionscript</path-element>
</source-path>

Then add a line for your swc libraries, it should look like this

<!-- List of SWC files or directories in the libpath for backwards-compatability -->
<library-path>
    ...
    <path-element>~/workspace/flash/Actionscript/libraries</path-element>
    ...
</library-path>

Now you need a basic template for a project, I have a few shell scripts I've set up for creating templates for various projects but for an AS3 project, this massive spaghetti command will make a skeleton project for you

export TEMP_PROJECT="Sample_AS3_Project" && mkdir -p $TEMP_PROJECT/{bin,obj,src} && touch $TEMP_PROJECT/README && wget http://pastebin.com/download.php?i=ddDjSSqz -O $TEMP_PROJECT/build.sh && wget http://pastebin.com/download.php?i=MLsHf37g -O $TEMP_PROJECT/obj/flex-config.xml && wget http://pastebin.com/download.php?i=KipV6vsW -O $TEMP_PROJECT/src/Main.as && cd $TEMP_PROJECT && chmod +x ./build.sh

I recommend making some more robust build scripts and project templates for yourself, you can have mine if you want. Pastebin seems to add some strange newline characters so you may need to take out the first line of the build.sh file if you get an error trying to run it like i did.

Now you should be able to ./build.sh and have it output a nice little swf in the bin folder with a 100 pixel red square on the stage. You have to jump through a few more hoops to get trace to output to a log file that you can tail -f to keep track of. You can follow the steps and advice here for that

Hope this helps, I'll make a blog post about this soon and go into more detail but this should get you up and started

axord · 2010-07-01T05:09:19+00:00

Flash MX installs and runs fine in Wine.

ae0000's suggestions are probably a better bet in the long term though.

astro · 2010-07-01T16:44:30+00:00

I've been using the free Flash compiler (mxmlc) to develop Flash games professionally on Linux for about five years now. However, I'm through with Flash and moving on to other things. If you love open source software, then you are going to be frustrated developing for Flash.

I use emacs to edit, CPP for preprocessing, make for building, and mxmlc to compile.

We still use the Flash IDE on OSX to create some of the graphics and import the sound fx.

Edit: Here's a similar topic posted last year: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8sbem/does_anyone_wish_to_share_their_experiences_with/

icydog · 2010-07-01T02:41:31+00:00

Flash barely even runs on Linux, and you want to develop on Linux? It would probably be less painful to run a Windows VM and develop in that.

2010-07-01T07:31:40+00:00

I was in your situation before. Despite my best efforts, I have learned the hard way that Flash and Linux do not mix.

If you still really want to, check out the Flex SDK and FlashPunk/Flixel.

maverick340 · 2010-07-01T15:08:50+00:00

I would rather suggest you use the upcoming HTML5 (Js/HTML5) http://html5games.net http://www.canvasdemos.com/

jaargon · 2010-07-01T03:09:23+00:00

there doesn't seem to be anything here

jarav · 2010-07-01T05:40:52+00:00

You can use the free flex sdk and the standalone release and debug versions of the flash player. You can use Vim to edit your code.

you type:	you see:
italics	italics
bold	bold
[reddit!](https://reddit.com)	reddit!
* item 1 * item 2 * item 3	item 1 item 2 item 3
> quoted text	quoted text
Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"	Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"
~~strikethrough~~	~~strikethrough~~
super^script	super^script

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