How to Moonlight
First what is it ?
Moonlight is an open source implementation of Silverlight (http://silverlight.net), primarily for Linux and other Unix/X11 based operating systems. In September of 2007, Microsoft and Novell announced a technical collaboration that includes access to Microsoft’s test suites for Silverlight and the distribution of a Media Pack for Linux users that will contain licensed media codecs for video and audio.
I know, I know, Mono … blah blah blah … Microsoft … blah blah blah
The problem is my wife does not care about that stuff, she just wants to listen to music …
Anyways you have been warned.
In desperation I dredged the web and found theses links :
Just reading that made my head explode. Not going to happen.
Then I found this page : Moonlight Downloads
*I know, it is in the first link, but the links on this page are not in the order I found them.
It is devilishly simple …
It is a Firefox plug-in -> Select 32 or 64 bit -> Click the button -> install the plug-in -> restart Firefox.
Next browse to web site -> “Listen Live” -> you will get a pop up asking for permission to install the codecs from Microsoft -> Answer Yes -> accept license agreement (my wife does at least 
)-> restart Firefox (again).
Make a few minor adjustments to Apparmor (you can skip this step if you do not use Apparmor).
Voila, done.
Posted in Linux
I know, i have to install to to listen my favorite station (The bone 107.7)
Comment by fernando — March 11, 2009 @ 10:56 pm
Yes, I’ve made much anti-mono noise.. blah blah blah.
Anyway, the part I am interested in is what you had to change with AppArmor. Are you using some extra profiles from somewhere? Or your own?
Comment by gQuigs — March 11, 2009 @ 11:12 pm
I had to modify my firefox apparmor profile to allow access to the Moonlight plugins.
Comment by bodhi.zazen — March 11, 2009 @ 11:27 pm
apt:moonlight-plugin-mozilla
Comment by Jo Shields — March 12, 2009 @ 1:25 am
I have always used microsoft, but slowly I am getting fed up with their greed. I am using windows, I use hotmail, I use Office I use, I use, I use, I use, I use, ……..
I will be interested to try anything other than microsoft. Imagine that, a microsoft free computer. That has to be a first.
Anyhow, hopefully, if heaps of folks did this, mr microsoft may listen to the folks that have got them this far. Those like myself, who have used nothing but microsoft!
Comment by Trev is Cheesed! — March 12, 2009 @ 1:32 am
Sad that we have to depend on yet another propietary format from microsoft. (eventhough mono is free software bla bla bla )
Comment by effie_jayx — March 12, 2009 @ 6:37 am
It would be nice if SilverLight works on non-windows systems, too! Can anyone try the Ryanair site
http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/dests.php
with Ubuntu and Firefox(incl. Silverlight plugin)?
The previous Flash map worked perfect…Why did they change it?
Comment by Mike Greifeneder — March 12, 2009 @ 6:54 am
@ effie_jayx : Indeed.
Comment by bodhi.zazen — March 12, 2009 @ 11:48 am
@ Jo Shields :
Sweet, thanks for the information.
For the “non-geeks” Jo is saying moonlight-plugin-mozilla is available in the jaunty (Ubuntu 9.04) repositories.
moonlight-plugin-mozilla (9.04 only)
At this time, however, it is not in the 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron) or 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) nor is moonlight listed in a search on Mozilla for firefox plug-ins (Add-ons).
FYI: At this time 9.04 is in Alpha so if you install it, IMO, be prepared to report bugs.
Comment by bodhi.zazen — March 12, 2009 @ 11:56 am
@Trev is Cheesed! (and others) :
Let go of your anger, it will not help you transition to a new OS.
Bashing other operating systems, Windows, Fedora, Ubuntu, etc does not promote your preferred OS.
Be willing to learn new things and you will go far.
The point of this post is that there is an Open source solution to Silverlight. I hope this information helps people by removing yet another barrier to transitioning to *nix (of whatever variant, they are all good).
Comment by bodhi.zazen — March 12, 2009 @ 12:02 pm
[...] Bodhi.Zazen: How to Moonlight [...]
Pingback by Peng’s links for Friday, 13 Mar « I’m Just an Avatar — March 13, 2009 @ 10:12 am
[...] organizationalombudsman posted a noteworthy aricle today onHere’s a small snippetMarch 11th, 2009 by bodhi.bzazen/b. First what is it ? Moonlight is an open source implementation of Silverlight (http://silverlight.net), primarily for Linux and other Unix/X11 based operating systems. In September of 2007, Microsoft and b…/b [...]
Pingback by Meditating On » Shadows of epiphany » Blog Archive » How to Moonlight — March 13, 2009 @ 3:12 pm
So considering that flash and shoutcast are great for streaming music why is it that people switched to providing it via silverlight?
Comment by airtonix — March 16, 2009 @ 10:31 am
Obviously different people use different OS / applications for different things and they all have advantages / disadvantages / bugs. Silverlight is the “latest / greatest” and so some will use if for that reason alone. Some people have no choice as to what they use as their employer or IT department decides for them (IMO it would be nice top see more freedom in the workplace).
Comment by bodhi.zazen — March 16, 2009 @ 12:04 pm
Mike Greifeneder:
I use Firefox 3 on a Debian lenny machine. (Actually, it is called Iceweasel on Debian for legal reasons but this is a technicality and irrelevant to this discussion.)
The Ryanair destinations webpage, as you pointed out, used to work fine using Flash. Why they changed it, I do not know. What I do know is that when I went to the destinations webpage recently and clicked on “Download Silverlight” (or something like that), I was automatically redirected to the Moonlight/Mono page, which I proceeded to install as a plugin for Firefox. The destinations webpage is still dysfunctional (i.e. the map loads, can zoom in and out and can pan, but the airports don’t appear and no routes are present so it is useless unless you like to stare at a blank map of Europe).
So what did I do? I decided to write an email to the Ryanair website people. What’s their address, you ask, as it is not available/displayed on the website? I took a chance a sent an email to webmaster@ryanair.com. It didn’t bounce (yet). Perhaps you could also send it to them there. If enough people complain, maybe they’ll at least offer the choice of the old Flash-based approach. Or maybe they’ll change their email address. Worth a try, though.
Best of luck!
Comment by Disappointed — March 22, 2009 @ 7:48 pm
Do you think we’ll ever be able to use moonlight to view netflix streaming movies?
Comment by HDave — May 19, 2009 @ 9:17 pm
http://www.itv.com/Channels/ITV1/?vodcrid=sim1
I can never get this site to work. Anyone know where I am going wrong?
Comment by Mart — May 23, 2009 @ 2:52 pm
[...] blog bodhizazen [...]
Pingback by MS Silverlight pre Linux « Užívateľov blog — June 19, 2009 @ 1:20 pm
I am a Ubuntu JJ user and am hoping that I can soon be able to watch Netflix with Firefox. I have gone to Synaptic Package Manager and installed everything to do with Moonlight but still no Netflix. From the sound of it it seems that people are using silverlight to do other things but I don’t know what that is yet. I will check a few of these above links out presently.
My conclusion though is that there is no Netflix yet with Linux. But other $ilverlight sites do work.
Comment by CJHess — July 18, 2009 @ 11:19 am
When I go on the moonlight page I am informed that I have the current version of moonlight, but whenever I go onto itv player I am told I need to install silverlight and then get redirected to moonlight. I have installed and restarted my browser/computer and no joy! Help?
Here is a specific example of a popular silverlight page I can’t view: http://www.itv.com/ITVPlayer/Video/default.html?ViewType=5&Filter=46597
Halp!
Comment by Luke — August 17, 2009 @ 4:34 am
by the way I am Ubuntu 9.04, firefox 3.0.13
Comment by Luke — August 17, 2009 @ 5:21 am
I too have the same problem with the ITV.com site, it directs you to a site to install moonlight, but after you install ITV.com still coplains that you are missing silverlight.
Nick.
Comment by Nick P — September 2, 2009 @ 3:48 am
Nick: It depends on what version of Silverlight the site is using. Moonlight supports Silverlight version 1 (not version 2) and support is somewhat spotty.
See http://www.go-mono.com/moonlight/MoonlightStatus.aspx
Comment by bodhi.zazen — September 2, 2009 @ 1:58 pm
There’s also a moonlight 2 prerelease that seems to be working alright, if you’re into these things.
Comment by inportb — November 11, 2009 @ 7:29 pm