Install Adobe AIR 1.5 and the Google Analytics Reporting Application on Ubuntu

Sometimes, I’m just too lazy to browse to the Google Analytics site – all that bookmark clicking, logging in, choosing profiles etc. I just can’t be arsed. I could, of course, leave the page open, and click refresh every now and then, or even bookmark the profile/report and go back later. That’s too obvious, and too easy. I like to complicate things, before they get easy – it makes me appreciate just how easy things are when they are easy.

I was thinking a while back “wouldn’t it be cool if there was a desktop reporting tool for Google Analytics – I could just run it, and it’d sit there quietly in the background waiting from me to press Alt+Tab”, when a friend pointed me to an interesting Bundle on YouBundle – “Best Adobe AIR Desktop Applications“. Sat amongst the application list, was the “Google Analytics Reporting Suite” – Just what I need! The only thing is, I didn’t have Adobe AIR installed… So, here’s how I went about getting it installed…

Installing Adobe AIR 1.5 Linux

64 Bit Users Note: Adobe AIR is not yet available as a 64 Bit application, so you’ll need to install 32 bit libraries first. If you haven’t got them already, in a Terminal, run:

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

Adobe AIR 1.5 is available for Linux. The binary can be downloaded from http://get.adobe.com/air (it auto detects your system). Once the file had downloaded to my desktop, I opened a Terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal), made the AdobeAIRInstaller.bin executable, and ran the file:

cd ~/Desktop
chmod +x AdobeAIRInstaller.bin
sudo ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

This fires up the Adobe AIR installer GUI, and it’s installed in a couple of clicks. It needs to be run with sudo, since it installs into /opt. The uninstaller, by the way, is located in the Applications -> Accessories menu.

Additional 64 Bit step

I didn’t actually run this, as everything seems to run fine, but in a Terminal, run:

sudo cp /usr/lib/libadobecertstore.so /usr/lib32

Installing Google Analytics Reporting Suite

This part should be easy – it should just be a case of visiting http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?event=extensionDetail&loc=en_us&extid=1282521 and clicking on “Install”. However, for some strange reason, the page wouldn’t detect my flash plugin properly – even though I have the latest 64 Bit version (albeit Alpha) installed from Adobe – so instead of the install box, I just had a box telling me to install Flash. No worries – with some sifting through the page’s HTML source code, I found the flash installation application just points to http://www.aboutnico.be/updates/gas32.air, so I just entered that into the browser, and when Firefox prompted, selected “Open with Adobe AIR Application Installer” – this downloads the file, and begins the installation.

I went through the motions – enter Admin password, choose location to install etc. and that was it. Once installed, it’s launched from Applications -> Accessories -> Analytics Reporting Suite. No more pesky logging in (except, of course, for the initial account setup).

A Note about TweetDeck

Many people seem to be having problems getting TweetDeck to work, so after some digging around (see comments below) I found a solution on http://beegod.org/tweetdeck-on-hardy-heron-64bit. It basically involves using getlibs to resolve dependency issues with the libgnome.keyring.so 32 bit library. In a Terminal, run:

wget http://www.boundlesssupremacy.com/Cappy/getlibs/getlibs-all.deb
sudo dpkg -i getlibs-all.deb
sudo getlibs -l libgnome-keyring.so.0.1.1

Postscript: Some people may be wondering why the image at the head of the post says “Adobe AIR for Linux beta”. Well, I originally wrote this post some time ago in November 2008, using Adobe AIR v1.1 Beta, but the whole setup was a little buggy – i.e. I couldn’t configure any account information in the Google Analytics application. It seemed a little pointless publishing a post when the software didn’t work, so I waited until everything did work – i.e. Adobe AIR v1.5. I just can’t be bothered to find another image, upload it etc…

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