Is there a way to download the Flash plug-in and the Microsoft fonts on one computer, and install them on another offline computer?
Simply downloading the flashplugin-installer
and ttf-mscorefonts-installer
packages isn't enough, as both these packages require Internet connections during their installation.
According to flashplugin-installer
's description:
WARNING: Installing this Ubuntu package causes the Adobe Flash Player plugin to be downloaded from www.adobe.com. The distribution license of the Adobe Flash Player plugin is available at www.adobe.com. Installing this Ubuntu package implies that you have accepted the terms of that license.
And ttf-mscorefonts-installer
has a similar warning:
You will need an Internet connection to download these fonts if you don't already have them.
Best Answer
You'll need a computer of the same architecture as the offline computer. This computer needs to be the same computer architecture as the offline computer (i.e: i386 32-bit or i686 64-bit). It needs to be running the same release of Ubuntu as the offline computer.
On the online computer:
Download the needed packages:
Create a directory in your home folder named
files-downloaded
.On the online computer, launch Synaptic. Under Ubuntu 11.04, this easily done by pressing the windows button, and then typing
synaptic package manager
.Find the package named![Marking flashplugin-installer for installation](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9cVWk.png)
flashplugin-installer
, right-click on it and mark it for installation. If it is already installed, mark it for re-installation.If a dialog window asks you to install
libnspr4-0d
, click Mark. If this dialog doesn't appear, you will need to findlibnspr4-0d
yourself and mark it for re-installation.Find the package named
ttf-mscorefonts-installer
, right-click on it and mark it for installation. If it is already installed, mark it for re-installation.If a dialog window asks you to install
cabextract
, click Mark. If this dialog doesn't appear, you will need to findcabextract
yourself and mark it for re-installation.Find the package named
debconf-utils
and mark it for installation or re-installation as necessary. This package is required later on to set the offline location of the additional files we are going to download.Click![Generating package download script](https://i.stack.imgur.com/1aLsV.png)
File
->Generate package download script
, and save the script under thefiles-download
directory with the namedownload-packages
.Open a terminal by pressing the windows key and typing
terminal
.Type the following. This will download all the required .deb files to the
files-downloaded
folder.Download the fonts:
Save the following code as
files-downloaded/download-fonts
:Open a terminal and type the following:
Download the Flash plugin tarball:
Save the following code as
files-downloaded/download-flash
:Open a terminal and type the following:
Transfer:
Now copy the folder named
files-downloaded
to a USB stick or use your favourite file synchronising service. This folder should have 11 .exe files, one .tar.gz file, five .deb files and three scripts.On the offline computer:
Copy the folder named
files-downloaded
to your home directory.Run the following in a terminal:
You're done! That was a lot more complicated than it should have been, but sadly both Adobe and Microsoft restrict the distribution of Flash and their fonts respectively. This is the only legal way to get round their strict licensing.
Just add if you are bugged with install of flashplugin-installer failing due to dependency update-notifier-common you can use the below steps to reinstall update-notifier-common:
Delete the files under
/usr/share/package-data-downloads
:Install update-notifier-common again:
This should now complete without attempting to download flash or fonts Rerun the script in the last part it should just work