A friend forwarded the e-mail below to me. It looks like there is a beta or prerelease of the Linux version of Adobe Air available. However, poking around Adobe’s site I can’t any references to this release and Googling hasn’t turned up anything useful (except for doc from last year saying Air for Linux will be here in the 1.2 release). And the first Q/A in the e-mail say there isn’t a public announcement, yet. If anyone knows what procedure there is get access to a version, please leave a comment.

Wouldn’t you think they’d include a few links in the e-mail! I’m guessing that it’s somewhere on http://labs.adobe.com, maybe all I have to do is register? Nor is there anything on the Air Forums?

The announcement is below, the only changes I’ve made is masking any e-mail addresses (to help prevent unnecessary spam), and some minor formatting to improve the legibility. BTW Adobe, good job on working on providing Linux support. However, I’d suggest that if you provide support for Ubuntu, that you also consider providing packages for Debian which is what Ubuntu is based on.

Update: See Ashutosh‘s comment below.

Also, see Arstechnica’s Air Review.

From: Prerelease Program Coordinator (vidhu _AT_ adobe DOT com)
Sent: Friday, February 15, 2008
Subject: First engineering drop of AIR for Linux now available on prerelease website

Attention Linux Prerelease Users and Developers,

Today we are very excited to announce that we are making available our first engineering drops of AIR running on Linux on our prerelease website. From the very beginning, it’s been our goal to bring AIR to Linux. Today marks the first in a series of upcoming milestones that will support attaining that goal.

To help set expectations around this announcement, please note the following:

• AIR Linux will target our 1.1 release later this year and not the upcoming 1.0 release. Whereas our Mac and Windows 1.0 builds are about to ship, the Linux release is targeted for the second half of this year.
• The AIR Linux builds are not yet feature complete (think alpha stage). It’s very important that you read the release notes to understand what features are currently unavailable. If you have an existing application, there’s a reasonable chance that certain parts of your application may not run. We will continue to post new builds on our prerelease website going forward.
• The AIR Linux builds are not as stable as Mac and Windows (again, think alpha stage). Since these are the first builds we’re posting to our prerelease website, there are many issues that we still need to address. The issues we know about are described in our release notes posted on the new Linux prerelease forum. If you encounter other issues, we’d appreciate it if you could please search our bug database and submit a bug if the issue has not yet been reported.
• Our current plan is to support the following distributions of AIR: RedHat Desktop Linux 4, RedHat Enterprise Linux v5, Novell Desktop Linux 9, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, and Ubuntu 6.06. This list will change between now and when we ship.
• We have created a new forum dedicated to Linux topics. If you are experiencing issues or have questions, please post on the Linux forum. You can subscribe to this new forum by logging into prerelease, selecting the “Linux” forum, and then selecting “Subscribe.”
• Bugs can be logged through our prerelease website. Under the “Resources” section, click on the “Report Bugs/Feature Requests” link. Next, click the link “Report AIR Bugs/Feature Requests – Linux”

We are particularly interested in feedback from developers running multiple distributions of Linux that might be able to compare install experiences or differences in performance.

If you have any questions related to AIR Linux, please post them to the new Linux prerelease forum which is now live. Below is a FAQ that provides additional information.

Be sure to view the release notes for this engineering drop by logging into the Linux forum on the prerelease website.

Thank you!

Rob Christensen

Product Manager, Adobe AIR

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Adobe AIR for Linux Prerelease FAQ

2/15/2008

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General Questions

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Q: Is this a public announcement?

A: No. This announcement is intended only for Adobe prerelease members.

Q: What exactly are you announcing?

A: We have posted the first engineering builds of the Adobe AIR runtime installer and SDK for Linux. In addition, we have posted several applications. You should consider these builds only alpha quality.

Q: Is the AIR on Linux feature complete?

A: No, please see the release notes for what’s currently not implemented. For example, key features such as printing, hardware acceleration, badge installation, keyboard accelerators and screen API’s are not yet completed. For a complete list, please see the release notes.

Q: When are you releasing AIR for Linux?

A: The short answer is when we think we’ve reached the quality that Linux users expect from us. Roughly, we are targeting the second half of this year.

Q: Will AIR for Linux have the same functionality as AIR 1.0 for Windows and Mac?

A: Our first engineering drop is not feature complete and will only have a subset of the 1.0 functionality. However, the shipping version of AIR for Linux, released later this year, will include the same capabilities as the upcoming 1.1 release which will include support for additional languages and additional bug fixes. Future engineering drops in the coming weeks will include additional AIR API’s.

Q: What’s the quality like on these builds?

A: These builds are early alpha. Please see the release notes for known issues.

Q: Where can I submit bugs?

A: Bugs can be logged through our prerelease website. Under the “Resources” section, click on the “Report Bugs/Feature Requests” link. Next, click the link “Report AIR Bugs/Feature Requests – Linux”

Q: Will the application I’ve been building that targets AIR 1.0 for the Mac or Windows run on the Linux build?

A: Maybe. AIR for Linux is not feature complete. Please see the release notes for more information on what API’s are not yet available.

Q: Where can I post questions?

A: We’ve created a new forum for developers working on the Linux version of AIR. Please use this forum when discussing Linux related issues.

Q: How often will you be releasing engineering drops?

A: As we continue to incorporate new capabilities and fix bugs, we’ll begin releasing additional updates.

Installation Questions

Q: How do I install AIR?

A: Installation instructions are available in the prerelease notes.

Q: Where does the runtime get installed?

A: The runtime gets installed in /opt/Adobe/AIR/Versions/1.0

Q: How do I uninstall the runtime?

A: From the command line, you may uninstall the package using the command: “rpm -e AdobeAIR_enu” OR “dpkg -r adobeair-enu” depending on your package type.

Q: Which distributions are you supporting?

A: We are currently deciding on the list of distributions we will ultimately support for Linux. For now, we have

• RedHat Desktop Linux 4
• RedHat Enterprise Linux v5
• Novell Desktop Linux 9
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10
• Ubuntu 6.06

We will likely change this list. For example, we may decide only to support the latest version of Ubuntu.

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Tooling

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Q: What tools can I use to build AIR applications on Linux?

A: You can use any text editor.

If you are interested in participating in the Flex Builder for Linux program, please email rchriste _AT_ adobe DOT com.