Centos 6/RHEL install Opera Browser + Opera to Mobile Plugin + Flash Plugin

Opera Browser, with its large plugin library, has some very useful functionality and is an ideal addition to Chrome and Firefox on a minimal Centos desktop.

Otherwise called 'Extensions' there are quite a few of them, some better than others but overall a huge and diverse selection.


Install Opera

To install Opera you will need some codecs, so bring those first from Rpmforge.

Get the repo if not already installed.

$sudo rpm -Uvh http://pkgs.repoforge.org/rpmforge-release/rpmforge-release-0.5.2-2.el6.rf.i686.rpm

$sudo vi /etc/yum.repos.d/rpmforge.repo  

and disable it by default.

$sudo vi /etc/yum.repos.d/rpmforge.repo

Set enabled to '0'

Now the codecs

$sudo yum -y --enablerepo=rpmforge install compat-libstdc++-33 libdvdcss libdvdread libdvdplay libdvdnav lsdvd libquicktime flash-plugin mplayer mplayer-gui gstreamer-ffmpeg gstreamer-plugins-good gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-plugins-ugly

Now go to http://www.opera.com/browser/ and download the Desktop browser, the Centos rpm package is fine

Install it with

$sudo rpm -Uvh <opera_file_name>.rpm

Run it with 

$opera

See Fluxbox key bindings for more if using it.

Flash/Java Plugins

Just symlink Mozilla plugins to Opera plugins directory.

If you have Firefox/Flash and Java already then just

$sudo ln -s /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/* . /usr/lib/opera/plugins

(or lib64)

to install those plugins to Opera

If not, go to the links, follow the steps, then repeat the above.

Opera plugins

Opera is loaded with useful tools, once of which is the Opera to Mobile plugin, which enables you to send a url to an Android or Ios mobile device that you have connected to your computer.

Open up Opera and the main menu, go to 'extensions' 'get extensions'. In the search box type 'mobile' and you should get an array of plugins related to the search. Select the 'Opera to Mobile' plugin and add it to Opera.

Once done you can send any url to an external device to view after some self explanatory configuration. You do need to have Chrome installed on the device, a point to note is that Chrome only works on Android 4 upwards.

Lots of other useful plugins are available if you take a look through the list, try also Developer Briefcase, which has Opera Mini functionality along with a few other things. Another one is Drop2Mobile which has similar functionality to the above.

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