How I watch Netflix on Precise Puppy and Tahrpup

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heywoodj
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Joined: Sun 15 Mar 2009, 04:39

How I watch Netflix on Precise Puppy and Tahrpup

#1 Post by heywoodj »

I was going to keep this to myself, but I figured there might be some interest in this. I had spent some time trying out things from mr_what's expansive HOW-TO : http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=86016 where he uses Wine to run a Windows version of Firefox.
I had some success but mostly failures, due to my misunderstanding of what was being discussed here and elsewhere. Particularly vexing was using the PPM(Puppy Package Manager) with new PPAs to add what seemed like unnecessary packages, and still facing missing packages.

So after a couple weeks dabbling I finally had success, but figured the amount of stuff added could be reduced. And so this is what I came up with.

The usual precautions apply:There is no warranty, you should back up your computer,and if done improperly you could wreck your operating system. This worked for me, but YMMV. And this Firefox is somewhat unstable -- it crashes on initial startup, but is generally OK, when running.
Also, I'm no Linux guru, merely a Puppy enthusiast trying to give back a little to this wonderful community. The real hard work was done by others for which I'm eternally grateful.

Overview:
So far for me, this has only worked on a full installs of Precise 5.7.1 and tahrpup 6.0 CE to an ext4 partition. 4GB is big enough. Frugal has failed.

My test machine is a hp/Compaq nx6325 laptop(1.6GHz AMD, 4GB RAM).

I manually downloaded the compholio Wine .deb files and installed them, and tested the Wine installation.

I downloaded and installed through Wine, the Windows version of Firefox 18.0.2, ignoring the Mono and Gecko installations. Start Firefox and immediately disabled updates.

Using Firefox, got the European Union Expansion Font Update from Microsoft and installed it.

Restarted Firefox.
Downloaded and installed Silverlight-5 and disabled Silverlight update -- Remember, in this case, updates are bad and can undo your handiwork..

The following site is sometimes found.It has disappeared before
Went to the MS Silverlight DRM test site and checked Silverlight configuration.

Went to Netflix and signed in. Happiness followed. You may need to reload the page from time to time.



The Details:

First make sure your full install on an ext4 partition of Precise Puppy or tahrpup is working well, and connected to the internet.

In a browser download these built packages:


for Precise:

for tahrpup: Note: It is not a requirement to sign-up with Dropbox to get the files!

I downloaded the archive file to /root/Downloads. (Create the folder if it doesn't exist) Navigate ROX-filer to ~/Downloads. Unpack the .deb files from the .tar.gz archive. Click on the two .deb files separately and they should each install successfully.

But Wine is installed to /opt/wine-compholio/bin rather than /bin or /usr/bin which is where Puppy puts executables(Puppy experts, correction please). A symlink solves that problem.

Open a console and type:

Code: Select all

ln  -s /opt/wine-compholio/bin/wine /usr/bin/wine
(Commandline copy&paste shortcut: copy by underlining text holding down left button; release button at end of line. Click on console. Paste by simultaneously clicking both left and right buttons (emulating middle button)).
Now enter:

Code: Select all

wine --version
which should respond with:

Code: Select all

wine-1.7.22
or whatever version was downloaded.
Congratulations, you have a working Wine.



Next, in a browser download the Windows version of Firefox-18.0.2:
http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-18.0.2
to /root/Downloads.

In the console type:

Code: Select all

cd Downloads;wine Firefox\ Setup\ 18.0.2.exe

which should start Wine which starts the Firefox installer.
Hit the "Cancel" button for Mono, since we probably won't be needing .NET stuff and "Cancel" again for Gecko.
When the installer finishes, launch Firefox.

Immediately disable Firefox updates since they will make Netflix unusable.

Code: Select all

Tools->Options->Advanced->Updates

Image

Next install the European Union Expansion Font Update from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download ... x?id=16083

Double click on "EUupdate.EXE" in the Mozilla Downloads window, and follow the usual installation instructions.

When finished, EU Update will ask if you want to restart. Say "Yes" and "Terminate Process".
Close the console and In a new console:

Code: Select all

wine "C:\\Program Files\\Mozilla Firefox\\firefox.exe"

and download Silverlight 5 from this page:

http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/

and follow the install directions. Uncheck "Enable Microsoft Updates" box.
Image

*************** the following step is optional, as the test site disappears occasionally ********************************

Go to http://web.sldrm.video.msn.com and when the video starts, right click on the video and left click "Silverlight". Click on the "Updates" tab and make sure "Never check for updates" is checked.
Image.

*********************************************************************************************

Now go and sign in at Netflix.com and enjoy! Firefox will hang occasionally and require reloading.

If Silverlight asks to update, decline.

I can't vouch that this Firefox will work correctly for everything and will often crash on startup. Do not be alarmed, once running it is usually okay.

Some keyboard controls:
<space> or <enter> = play/pause toggle
<F> = Full Screen
<ESC> = Exit Full Screen
<Right Arrow> = Forward 10 seconds
<Left Arrow> = Back 10 seconds

Special thanks to mr_what and 01micko for showing that Netflix was possible in Puppy.

Below is a short script to simplify starting Firefox. Extract it to /root, and drag it to your desktop if you desire.

HJ

edit: Added screenshots.
edit 6/9/14: updated launchpad link to current version.
edit 6/17/14:notes reflecting experience.
edit: 6/28/14:corrected embarrassing misstatement in my notes.
edit: 7/16/14:the Silverlight test site is back;useful but not necessary.
edit 11/2/14: Now using Silverlight 5.
edit 11/5/14: Added instructions for tahrpup 6.0 CE.
edit 4/27/15: Changed the location of wine-compholio files. Also removed unnecessary notes.
edit 7/9/15: Clarified getting files from Dropbox.
Attachments
Start_Firefox.tar.gz
Script to simplify starting Firefox and Firefox icon
(54.69 KiB) Downloaded 424 times
Last edited by heywoodj on Fri 10 Jul 2015, 03:30, edited 12 times in total.

heywoodj
Posts: 85
Joined: Sun 15 Mar 2009, 04:39

#2 Post by heywoodj »

OK, now 6 days and over 100 views out, I have received no comments.

Did this work for anybody?

Any clarification you need?

I'm happily watching Netflix on my Precise Puppy virtually every day, only issue is that Firefox may crash a time or two in the beginning. That's a small price for a made up solution using old software versions, running through (not) an emulator, I think. If only Windows was so simple to fix.

I think this solution may be more hardware intensive than Windows, and may give a more clippy video, especially on a wireless connection.

Curious for some feedback.

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mikeb
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#3 Post by mikeb »

Perhaps because netflix as been avoided as it appeared to require mono but it appears you have disproved that. Your method does sound much less messy and would be handy for netflix users who do pop up now and then.

So heres a bump :)

I don't use it myself...I seem to find plenty of alternatives so cannot comment on the technique. Silverlight its really just an rtmp player...now if we could find a way of getting the stream directly then it would play nicely in vlc or mplayer...there is a site that provides direct links for silverlight media and they work like a charm but unfortunately that does not include netflix.

mike

puppylinuxuser
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Joined: Thu 09 Jan 2014, 18:59

#4 Post by puppylinuxuser »

i'm trying to get this working.

right now I'm getting a whoops something went wrong message...Digital Rights Management DRM erro

I used a newer cornholio wine then the guide.

I'm running precise on an sd card usb install, is that an issue over your statement in the instructions about a full install of precise?

my fstab looks like this:

none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts gid=2,mode=620 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,rw 0 0

thanks for the help and the guide. I'd sure like to have netflix on puppy!

edit: I will add that the test video (msn link) worked but that might not require DRM.

heywoodj
Posts: 85
Joined: Sun 15 Mar 2009, 04:39

#5 Post by heywoodj »

puppylinuxuser,
I've only dabbled with SD card installs, but I'm a little confused with your fstab... shouldn't there be a root, i.e. a "/" entry for your sd card?

mr_what's thread suggested using an ext4 partition so that xattr is enabled automatically.

BTW, cornholio... Heh,Heh! Heh,Heh! Cool!
(It's actually compholio, but I saw cornholio first time too!)


Edit: New package from https://launchpad.net/~pipelight/+archi ... /+packages, click on "wine-compholio - 1.7.XX-1~ubuntu12.04.1", download
wine-compholio_ 1.7.XX-1~ubuntu12.04.1_i386.deb
wine-compholio-i386_1.7.XX-1~ubuntu12.04.1_i386.deb

puppylinuxuser
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#6 Post by puppylinuxuser »

thank you for the help.

I used. 1.7.19-1

I'm confused by the fstab too. Don't really know enough about this stuff...

I may try a new install using ext4 to see if it works.

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mikeb
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#7 Post by mikeb »

the fstab root entry suggests a full install... for SD its usually frugal so root device is a chrooted aufs layering.

mike

puppylinuxuser
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#8 Post by puppylinuxuser »

thanks for the additional info mikeb.

I did find this in the "how I patched wine for netflix thread


The full install may be the most important thing to note, because Silverlight requires XATTR (extended file attributes) to be enabled on any volumes where it saves or caches information (i.e., the .wine directory which will be created in your home folder, and possibly in /usr/bin/wine although I'm not sure about that). A full install -- in my case, to a single ext4 volume -- allowed me to add "user_xattr" to fstab to ensure it was enabled.
Code:
cat /etc/fstab

/dev/sda1 / ext4 defaults,user_xattr 0 1
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts gid=2,mode=620 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,rw 0 0

Without XATTR, Netflix throws "N8156-6022" errors when attempting to play video. I don't know enough about Puppy's file systems to tell you if setting this flag in fstab would work for a frugal install, or if you can set XATTR to be included in a targeted SFS build. Can anyone fill in these particular blanks?
that is the error code I am getting.

here is the thread by mr_what I'm talking about: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 943d543958

going to read further, maybe somebody has answered for a frugal.

I could run a full install on the SD card too, although i prefer frugal for my use

puppylinuxuser
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#9 Post by puppylinuxuser »

edit sorry double post

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mikeb
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#10 Post by mikeb »

hmm ok... that crap...when is a movie not a movie...when corporations get their hands on them... Got an online game that will only run from ntfs as it does similar stuff for 'security'
(this is more like dos stuff isn't it with xattr)

So a full install on ext4 does provide for its needs.... in my head an ext4 save file could do the same BUT the unioned filesystem may in effect be seen as ext2 by wine.

It may help to move and symlink out the .wine folder to somewhere that is ext4 in that case. I did once experiment with a .wine image file too.
It would have to be posix as wine has a symlink or 2 in there. Quite a mix of worlds on this one.

mike

puppylinuxuser
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Joined: Thu 09 Jan 2014, 18:59

#11 Post by puppylinuxuser »

could a person do this with slack too?

I like it more.

i'm trying a full install

edit:

ok I guess it takes some monkeying around to have the usb installer do a full install so I haven't tried that yet.

I did try making a frugal install on the sd card with an ex4 file format but it didn't boot.

so now i'm trying a frugal install on sd card with two partitions one ex2 and one ex4. I'm hoping that I can put the wine stuff on the ex4 and it will work.

not sure a little over my head here.

heywoodj
Posts: 85
Joined: Sun 15 Mar 2009, 04:39

#12 Post by heywoodj »

Okay, so I tried couple other methods of installation and this is what I believe I know:

1. A full Precise 5.7.1 install on a ext4 partition still works, even with the current 1.7.20 version of compholio.

2. A frugal install on the same ext4 partition fails with the dreaded "N8156-6022" error from Netflix, which seems to be an indication of Silverlight failure.

3. The full install, if on an ext4 partition does not require the "user_xattr" line on /etc/fstab to work.

4. I have not had any success with installs on USB flash drives, even with a separate ext4 partition onboard. In fact, I cannot get the USB drive to even boot if the booting partition is ext4, after trying the 5 different MBR options.

If someone knew what they were doing they COULD possibly negotiate a "chroot jail" setup in a second ext4 partition on a flash drive or maybe a SD card and do all the wine stuff there. I think that's along the line that mikeb was talking about...

5.The Silverlight test site has gone AWOL. A potential alternative site (bouncing balls) when used not only crashes Firefox, it also freezes my computer, requiring a hard reboot. Just like Windows, again!

I'll edit the first post to reflect these findings.
Last edited by heywoodj on Tue 17 Jun 2014, 16:01, edited 1 time in total.

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mikeb
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#13 Post by mikeb »

Hmm not much to add at the moment... you basically have what is and is not possible.

Ext4 boots... I know grub4dos cannot directly...the wizard uses a alternative mbr to get around it.

As for chroot...some time ago we played with a method of running software in a separate aufs chrooted layer as a mean of clean testing/jailing. Amigo knows the technique well.

Basically unionfuse is used to make a union... the running system is the bottom layer...ie '/'. the new program is next (folder or sfs mounted to folder) and finally a read/write layer which is a folder somewhere convenient..could be tmpfs etc.
Once created to a further folder you then chroot into that and run ...

The information is scattered but thats the basic idea... it may be adaptable to this but may have the same problem as the usual puppy union...ie appearing as ext2 which I suspect is the problem here.

Alternative would be to do things like force a full install to flash... but obviously the frugal way is popular for various reasons.

mike

shadower_sc
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Location: Texas

Re: How I watch Netflix on Precise Puppy

#14 Post by shadower_sc »

I just wanted to say thanks for posting your how to. It helped me a lot in getting Pipelight setup and working in Precise Puppy. Now I can continue with creating an Updated Kiosk for my machines.

heywoodj
Posts: 85
Joined: Sun 15 Mar 2009, 04:39

Re: How I watch Netflix on Precise Puppy

#15 Post by heywoodj »

shadower_sc wrote:I just wanted to say thanks for posting your how to. It helped me a lot in getting Pipelight setup and working in Precise Puppy. Now I can continue with creating an Updated Kiosk for my machines.
Glad you found something useful here. A little curious as to what you're setting up, if you'd care to share.
edit: I just found your How-To. NVM.

I just did a re-install of Wine just to see if anything much changed. Still working, warts and all as before, now using wine-compholio version 1.7.22.

Oh, and the Silverlight test site is back! It's not necessary but maybe helpful to verify the Silverlight install.

I'll edit the first post to reflect this.

Just watched a couple hours of material on the new install, in the name of research, of course!

I also did try making a chroot jail on a second partition on a flash drive. The install didn't work, but I could kind of see the "outline" of a solution. I also decided that it's way more complicated than just doing a full install on a hard drive, so I'm unlikely to pursue it further.

heywoodj
Posts: 85
Joined: Sun 15 Mar 2009, 04:39

Oh, Oh! Netflix has changed...

#16 Post by heywoodj »

Something has changed at Netflix in the past week(~Oct. 28-31,2014). Instead of watching videos, I get this error message:
Image

I have tried newer and older versions of wine-compholio, but no success. As I had gotten used to watching videos via this "older Windows-version Firefox running under Wine" bodge, I hope to get this repaired -- soon!

And upgrading to a newer Silverlight is not an option. as Silverlight 5 will not work.

Am researching this but if anyone has any insight, please speak up.

elcurita
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Joined: Wed 10 Jun 2009, 00:09

How I wach Netflix on Precise Puppy

#17 Post by elcurita »

I downloaded Chrome version 38.0.2125.111 and voila Netflix was on.No tinkering at all. It supports Netflix out of the box.
Download sfs here:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 964#805964
or direct from Google.com. I am on Xprecise it is Precise w/lxde.

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mikeb
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#18 Post by mikeb »

Of course it does.... part of the google backhand deals going on. The game microsoft started trying to force their systems.

There are hundreds of sites for movies/TV without all this crap...

mike

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ETP
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Re: How I wach Netflix on Precise Puppy

#19 Post by ETP »

elcurita wrote:I downloaded Chrome version 38.0.2125.111 and voila Netflix was on.No tinkering at all. It supports Netflix out of the box.
Download sfs here:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 964#805964
or direct from Google.com. I am on Xprecise it is Precise w/lxde.
@ elcurita,

It is good to hear that you have Netflix working out of the box but could you please supply some more details?

The link you supply in your post points to Chromium rather than Chrome. AFAIK Chromium does not yet provide native Netflix support.

With regard to what you downloaded was it the stable, beta or dev version and are you running as root or spot?

Finally if you launch Chrome from at terminal can you post any error messages that appear?
Regards ETP
[url=http://tinyurl.com/pxzq8o9][img]https://s17.postimg.cc/tl19y14y7/You_Tube_signature80px.png[/img][/url]
[url=http://tinyurl.com/kennels2/]Kennels[/url]

bark_bark_bark
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Location: Wisconsin USA

#20 Post by bark_bark_bark »

technically you can use the linux version of firefox and pipelight to watch netflix. I would stay away from Chrome completely.

Remember, Friends don't let Friends use Chrome (or any google product)!
....

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