[UPDATED] Moonlight got easier for Ubuntu users

[Updated to include instructions for getting the PPA's OpenPGP key. -Peng]

Last month I mentioned that version 1 of Moonlight, the open source port of Microsoft’s Silverlight software, reached both beta status and finally it’s official release (download the Firefox plugin here). Of course I still had one problem. Since I moved from Firefox 3 to Epiphany I couldn’t use the plugin for Firefox.

I posted a question on the Ubuntu Forums yesterday asking if anyone had gotten it to work with Epiphany-Gecko, and a mere nine hours after I asked my question I got a response from directhex. He has a Personal Package Archive (PPA) on Launchpad that has packages for Moonlight for users of both Ubuntu Hardy and Ubuntu Intrepid. (The PPA is now labeled the badgerports PPA so don’t be concerned if you find that prominently displayed and not his name.) He did warn me that

(tested quickly on AMD64 Intrepid; minor focus problem w/ right-click menus on Epi; packages may not have built yet on the PPA – be patient)

I added his PPA to my sources and checked for moonlight-plugin-mozilla, which had been built for a little over 12 hours, and once I restarted Epiphany I see under about:plugins that it’s installed, although it didn’t work that well for either MLB.com’s video content or for the popup player from a local classic rock radio station’s 70′s specific HD radio station. I was able to see that Silverlight is there on the MLB site, but the local radio station’s player acts as if I didn’t install Silverlight at all. I’ve let directhex know about the issue, and it seems it may be an issue of the sites requiring Silverlight 2, and Moonlight is currently at version 1 compatibility.

Running on Ubuntu, or possibly any recent Debian-based distro, and want to give it a try for yourself? You can snag Moonlight from directhex’s repo and be assured that if he updates his package you’ll get the update notification from the Update Manager. Just add this line to your /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/directhex/ubuntu intrepid main

then update your package list with

sudo apt-get update

And finally add the moonlight package

sudo apt-get install moonlight-plugin-mozilla

Updated 20 October: Thanks to Dale’s comment I realized that I needed to include the information on getting the OpenPGP PPA key.  Before you run the install command you need to get the PPA’s key so Ubuntu will know that the files in the archive are authenticated. If you go to the main information page for directhex’s PPA you’ll see a link to get technical details about the PPA. Click that link and you’ll see the line to add to your sources.list Below you’ll see information on getting the signing key, as well as a link to info on how to actually get the key for apt to use. Instead of making you go through all of that hassle I’ll summarize it here and you will have the steps for use on any Launchpad PPA. Look at the numbers under where it says Signing key and either copy or make not of the part after the slash. In this case the line is 1024R/23DC003A so you want to use 23DC003A. Now open a terminal and run this command

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 23DC003A

replacing the text after --recv-keys with the information you copied from the PPA’s details. Once that’s run go ahead and update your package list and you’ll be ready to install Moonlight without any arguments from apt about an unverified source.

Once you’ve installed the packages restart your browser and visit your favorite site that has Silverlight content and enjoy the fact that you’re no longer shut out from Microsoft’s newest proprietary technology. Directhex has a test page that he always uses, and it works for me, plus it has some very cool content for you to test your new plugin with.

About these ads