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How to Watch Hulu Videos in Ubuntu / Linux Mint

Last updated: August 24, 2015

hulu videos playback in Ubuntu

Due to the changes to incorporate Adobe Flash DRM technology, Hulu movies and TV shows are not longer working on Ubuntu Linux without HAL support since a couple of weeks ago.

A couple of weeks ago, Hulu made some changes to their video playback system to incorporate Adobe Flash DRM technology. Unfortunately, this meant that Hulu no longer functioned on Ubuntu because Adobe stopped supporting Flash on Linux several year ago, and therefore Adobe’s DRM requires HAL which was likewise obsoleted about 4 years ago and was dropped from Ubuntu in 13.10. The net result is that Hulu no longer functions on Ubuntu.

Fortunately, Michael Blennerhassett has maintained a PPA repository with HAL packages for all current releases and derivatives, e.g, Ubuntu 15.10, Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.04, Linux Mint 17.

Below is how-to install the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) from PPA:

1. Add the PPA. Open terminal from the Dash, App Launcher, or via Ctrl+Alt+T shortcut key. When it opens, run command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mjblenner/ppa-hal

hal-ppa

2. After adding the PPA, install hal package via Synaptic Package Manager. Or by running below commands in terminal:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install hal

via: nhaines.com

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    7 responses to How to Watch Hulu Videos in Ubuntu / Linux Mint

    1. Michael Drewry August 24, 2015 at 11:49 pm

      This did not work for me, I am still getting an error message saying “there was a problem playing this protected content” was there something else I should have done. And I am using firefox.

    2. Hoover Campoverde August 26, 2015 at 9:56 am

      Thank you Ji m for your big help.

    3. Coatit August 30, 2015 at 12:41 pm

      Worked great. Thank you so much. No cable in my area and Hulu is all we watch.

    4. A better approach — reroute hal calls to udev November 6, 2015 at 4:39 pm

      You can also use the hal-flash library. I think this is a better approach, as it reroutes hal calls to udev, rather than trying to keep hal staggering along. See https://github.com/cshorler/hal-flash

      Just a few commands: (on Linux Mint 17):

      sudo apt-get install libglib2.0-dev dbus libdbus-1-dev libtool automake autoconf checkinstall build-essential git

      git clone https://github.com/cshorler/hal-flash.git
      cd hal-flash/
      autoreconf -i
      ./configure --prefix=
      make
      sudo make install

      installs to /lib/libhal.so
      I didn’t even have to restart Firefox, hulu video immediately started working again.

      • xeonicus November 29, 2015 at 4:00 am

        This was the solution that finally worked for me in Zorin OS 9. Hulu in Firefox started working immediately.

      • kelson baird December 14, 2015 at 5:33 pm

        still doesn’t work for me. not sure why, looked like everything worked, but still no love same error on playback. running ubuntu 15.10

    5. Jason Walters May 28, 2016 at 10:22 pm

      ”
      sudo apt-get install libglib2.0-dev dbus libdbus-1-dev libtool automake autoconf checkinstall build-essential git

      git clone https://github.com/cshorler/hal-flash.git
      cd hal-flash/
      autoreconf -i
      ./configure –prefix=
      make
      sudo make install”
      worked for Debian Jessie … and it worked flawlessly