TechSource: How to Install Netflix on Linux

Posted: 25 Mar 2014 09:36 PM PDT

It's 3 AM in the night. All the lights are off. The only light in the room is the one emanating from your laptop screen as you're trying hard to keep your eyes from shutting off. Then, for a moment you wince and gasp as Kevin Spacey looks at you and reveals his next Machiavellian plan. The episode ends and you admit to yourself, you're hooked to House of Cards.

Be it "House of Cards" or "Orange is the New Black", Netflix is known for keeping its users hooked to their service. In fact, Netflix has become the next HBO. Founded in 1997 by investing $2.5 million on one of the co-founder's own money, Netflix initially launched with 30 employees and 925 workers. The idea had come to Reed Hastings (CEO and co-founder of Netflix) one day when he was forced to pay $40 in overdue fines after returning Apollo 13, which was past its due date.

Soon, the popularity of Netflix grew making it a major player in the movie rental business. This maybe hard to believe but in 2000, Netflix was offered to Blockbuster for $50 million. Blockbuster declined and the rest is history. With a business model based on flat-fees and unlimited rentals without any due dates, shipping charges, or late fees, Netflix has become a household name for movie and TV lovers.

As omnipresent as Netflix is, it is not officially available on Linux yet. Thankfully, though, developers have come up with unofficial versions of the app. In this article, we'll show you ways to get Netflix working -- using these unofficial versions -- on your Ubuntu or Fedora desktop.

Ubuntu

On Ubuntu, installing Netflix is pretty simple. All you have to do is add the ppa and then install the app. First, open up your terminal by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T together and type in or paste the following commands:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ehoover/compholio
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install netflix-desktop

To start Netflix, open the Dash using the Super key and type in Netflix to search for the app.

Fedora

Installing Netflix on Fedora isn't as straightforward as it is on Ubuntu. However, this doesn't mean that it is difficult. All you have to do is type in or paste a few commands and you are done.

First install wget by typing in the following command:

sudo yum -y install wget

To download Netflix in your home directory, type in:

wget -c http://sourceforge.net/projects/posti...

Then, unzip the file:

tar -xvzf Netflixplayer.tar.gz

Then, start Netflix Player using the following command:

sudo sh Netflixplayer.sh

To run Netflix every time, all you have to do is type in the following command in your terminal:

sudo sh /usr/bin/Netflix.sh

Alternatively, if you want to save yourself some trouble and instead watch Netflix from your browser, Webupd8 has an excellent guide on how to enable Silverlight on Linux (which is required to run Netflix). You can check out the guide HERE.

Written by: Abhishek, a regular TechSource contributor and a long-time FOSS advocate.