Porting of Flash Player to UNIX- like Environments
Calsoft Labs’s expertise in porting Flash Player to embedded systems on UNIX- like Environments enables the client to meet the technical and time-to-market objectives.
Company
The Client is a leading provider of software technology for distributed, embedded and network-based systems. The OS is more of a UNIX-like environment.
Challenge
The requirement of the client was to port the Mozilla browser plug-in version of Flash Player to their OS, which is based on UNIX environment.
The task was to port the Adobe Flash Player that is based on the Linux environment to the client’s OS environment. Even though both Linux and client’s OS were derived from UNIX, they still had number of changes, especially the build tools, the C++ compiler/linker options and the Open Sound System (OSS) implementations.
Solution
The client invited Calsoft Labs to port Flash Player onto their two different flavours of the operating systems based on the Calsoft Labs’s expertise in similar porting works. Calsoft Labs’s engineering team had to come up with the first version of the ported Flash Player in less than two months.
A team consisting of a Project Manager, Project Leader and a Senior Architect was assigned for this task. The first release was ready in less than one month on the server version of the client’s OS. The final release on both the operating systems was delivered in two months time.
The team faced challenges especially in the compiler sections. The C++ compiler used in the client’s OS environments was different from the normal UNIX based version. The way the C++ compiler was handling the different API calls, vtbls were quite different form the normal GCC compiler used in the Linux environment. Accordingly, the original Flash Player SDK was modified to take the different compiler options for client’s OS environment.
As the OSS sound implementation was different from the normal OSS implementation of any other OS, the sound handling for the Flash Player was modified to the meet the client’s OS environment requirements.
The team observed that there were some fundamental issues related to the Mozilla plug-in code handling in Flash Player which was creating problems on client’s OS environment. The virtual table (vtbl) handling was changed by adding some padding to the existing virtual table structures in the Flash Playercode to handle the problem of Flash Player crashing when opening some sites.
When the Automated Test Suite (ATS) was run on the developed Flash Player all the issues identified during the testing were fixed. Along with the Plug-in Flash Player deliverable, Calsoft Labs submitted the test results to Adobe for certification of the ported Flash Player.
Result
With the Calsoft Labs team taking up the porting of Flash Player development work, the client was able focus on his core OS level changes / implementations which allowed them to showcase the end product in much less time. Timely delivery of the software enabled the client to meet his business goals as well.
Benefits
Calsoft Labs’s expertise in Flash Player Porting development offers many advantages to the equipment vendors:
- High quality development skills on a variety of Operating Systems
- Quick turn around
- Lower cost of development
- Guaranteed support