Hello Linux Geeksters. As you may know, Pipelight is a browser plugin which enables the use of Microsoft’s close-source Silverlight, in order to have access at video streaming services, like Netflix, for example.
Pipelight needs both a Linux library and a Windows file called pluginloader.exe, that loads the Silverlight DLLs via Wine. Many popular television services, including Netflix can be watched only via Silverlight / Pipelight, so this workaround is quite useful.
The latest version available is Pipelight 0.2.6, which has been recently released, coming with a bunch of improvements and a a few new plugins. Among others, it adds support for plugins and ViewRight Vizzed RGR which are used for online games and comes with support for 64 bit, enabling the users to play games based on the Unity3D game engine. For more information see the release notes.
In this article I will show you how to install Pipelight 0.2.6 on Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr, Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander, Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal, Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin, Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx, Linux Mint 17 Qiana, Linux Mint 16 Petra, Linux Mint 14 Nadia, Linux Mint 13 Maya and Elementary OS 0.2 Luna.
Because it is available via PPA, installing Pipelight 0.2.6 on the listed Ubuntu, Linux Mint and Elementary OS systems is easy. All you have to do is add the ppa to your system, update the local repository index and install the pipelight package. Like this:
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pipelight/stable
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install pipelight
Optional, to remove pipelight and downgrade all the packages that got updated via the pipelight PPA, do:
$ sudo apt-get install ppa-purge
$ sudo ppa-purge ppa:pipelight/stable