Adobe Flash Versus GNOME Totem Vegas on openSUSE 12.2 GNOME 3.4.2

 Totem, the good old Multimedia player from GNOME stable has become the new superstar in Linux world after it has come out with its own flash compatible plug-in that allows Linux users to play flash videos from major video streaming sites like youtube and metacafe. Vegas servers as a good alternative to Adobe Flash for playing flash videos in the aforementioned sites.

 The new Totem plug-in is called (vegas) browser plugin. Totem is multimedia player for the GNOME desktop based on GStreamer framework. The "totem-browser-plugin-vegas" allows one to play  Flash videos with virtually any browser like Firefox, Seamonkey, Opera etc. The advent of Vegas is good news especially since Adobe has stopped providing Flash Player for Linux.

Vegas Pluses

• Can be installed along side Adobe Flash.
• Works on variety of browsers.
• Supports fullscreen and non fullscreen modes.
• Can be easily disabled and enabled as described below.

Install Vegas

Various things to do before installing Vegas on openSUSE 12.2 are:-

• Configure "Community repositories" using YaST similar to what is described in this post.
• Finish the Multimedia related steps described in this post.

Install Vegas using YaST

 To locate YaST installer on GNOME 3.X desktop you can use the left "win" key or "Alt+F1" key combination to open "Activities" window. In this window you can start typing a search query like "install" when YaST installer will show up grouped under "Applications" as shown below.

 After opening YaST installer you can type in the search query in YaST as shown below.  After locating Vegas you can select the required software using the relevant checkbox . To complete installation you can press the "Apply" button.

Install Vegas using zypper.

 First we need to open command launcher using key combination "Alt+F2" . Then invoke the terminal using the command "gnome-terminal". After terminal opens, we can use the "zypper" command to install the relevant packages as shown below.

$sudo -u root zypper in totem*vegas*
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
Resolving package dependencies...
The following NEW package is going to be installed:
  totem-browser-plugin-vegas
1 new package to install.
Overall download size: 56.0 KiB. After the operation, additional 71.5 KiB will
be used.
Continue? [y/n/?] (y): y
Retrieving package totem-browser-plugin-vegas-3.4.3-1.1.1.x86_64
                                           (1/1),  56.0 KiB ( 71.5 KiB unpacked)
Retrieving: totem-browser-plugin-vegas-3.4.3-1.1.1.x86_64.rpm[done (58.5 KiB/s)]
Installing: totem-browser-plugin-vegas-3.4.3-1.1.1 .......................[done]

Notes:- "sudo" is command to execute a command as another user , "-u" option specifies the user which is "root" in this case, "zypper" is the command for managing packages, "in" option stands for installation, zypper allows wildcards like "*" while specifying package names.

Configure Vegas as Flash player

 To configure Vegas as the default plugin to handle flash content on your browser of choice, you may need to disable the Adobe flash plugin. You can easily do this using "Add-ons Manager" in Firefox and SeaMonkey as shown below.

 Similarly in Opera you need to open the "opera:plugins" page through the location or address bar and disable the relevant plugin.

Screenshot of Youtube video in Opera played using Vegas

Screenshot of Metacafe video in SeaMonkey played using Vegas

Short Video Clip comparing the working of Vegas and Adobe Flash

 This is a short screencast comparing video playing capability of Adobe Flash plug-in (Opera) and Totem plug-in Vegas (SeaMonkey). Screen capture done on GNOME 3.4.2 desktop using built in Screencasting tool. Control+Shift+Alt+R keybinding starts and stops the recording. The screencast was generated in "*.webm" format and is readily compatible with youtube. The video first shows SeaMonkey playing Metacafe and Youtube videos in fullscreen and normal mode using Vegas plugin . Then we switch over to Opera which plays same videos using flash plugin. The Screencast proves beyond a doubt that Vegas has good video playing capability and can switch quite smoothly between normal and full screen modes :-)