Hitchhiker's Guide to Openbsd

13.13 - Can I have Java support in my web browser? (i386 & 
amd64 only)
The Java plugin is part of the Java Development Toolkit (JDK). For licensing reasons, OpenBSD cannot 
ship binary packages for the JDK. This means you will have to build it from ports. Further information 
on building the JDK can be found in 
FAQ 8 - Programming Languages
. Once you have finished 
building the JDK, you can install either the full JDK package or just the Java Runtime Environment 
(JRE) which is in a subpackage and contains the browser plugin. 
Upon installation, instructions are displayed for using the Java plugin with the Firefox or Seamonkey 
web browser. Create the symlink as explained, and then you should see the Java plugin upon entering 
"about:plugins" in the URL bar. 
For KDE's Konqueror web browser, either the java binary must be in your PATH, or its absolute path 
can be configured from the menu Settings -> Configure Konqueror -> Java & JavaScript. By default, the 
java binary is located in 
/usr/local/jre-version/bin/
or 
/usr/local/jdk-version/
bin/
, depending on whether you installed the JRE or the JDK. 
Note: Java support has only been tested with the Firefox, Seamonkey, and Konqueror web browsers. If 
it works well for you using a different browser, please let us know. 
13.14 - Can I have Flash support in my web browser? (i386 only)
Firstly, if you are just looking to watch flash videos from common websites, there are a number of 
options in packages, including: 
get_flash_videos
, 
minitube
, 
youtube-dl
, get_iplayer and yt. 
The Flash plugin is distributed by Adobe in binary form only. Adobe does not provide a native 
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13 - Multimedia
OpenBSD plugin, but there is a Linux plugin which you can use under Linux emulation. This plugin is 
available only for the i386 platform. 
Before continuing, it is a good idea to read about Linux emulation in the 
compat_linux(8)
manual page, 
and also 
FAQ 9 - Running Linux binaries on OpenBSD
. 
If you have understood this and you didn't install the necessary files yet, just add the fedora package. 
Assuming you have the environment variable 
PKG_PATH
set (see 
FAQ 15
), 
# pkg_add -i fedora_base
This will automatically set 
kern.emul.linux=1
, but not permanently. If you need permanent Linux 
emulation, you need to specify that in 
/etc/sysctl.conf
, as explained in 
FAQ 9 - Running Linux 
binaries on OpenBSD
. 
Another thing you should know is that Linux shared libraries and modules cannot be used with 
OpenBSD executables, so you will need a Linux browser as well. 
One candidate is the 
Opera
web browser, available in the ports tree. OpenBSD does not distribute 
packages for it, since Opera's license is not clear about its redistribution. However, installation should 
not take long, since it is distributed in binary form by Opera Software. After that you can easily install 
the Flash plugin from the ports tree. 
# cd /usr/ports/www/opera
# make install
# cd /usr/ports/www/opera-flashplugin
# make install
Note: It should be sufficient to perform the last step alone, and the ports system will install the 
dependencies automatically. For clarity, however, we split the process into a few steps here to explain. 
If you have followed the above guidelines, the Flash plugin should now be listed when you type "about:
plugins" in the URL bar. 
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[e-mail]
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14 - Disk Setup
 
[FAQ Index]
 
[To Section 13 - Multimedia]
 
[To Section 15 - Packages and Ports]