Hands-on: Hulu Desktop for Linux beta a big resource hog
October 16th, 2009
Hands-on: Hulu Desktop for Linux beta a big resource hog
Hulu Desktop was only available for Windows and Mac OS X when it launched in May. This week, the popular streaming video service has finally brought its experimental desktop player to the Linux platform. Installation packages are available for download from the Hulu Labs website.
I tested Hulu Desktop on Ubuntu 9.04 with Flash 10 on my quad-core desktop computer. The program is built almost entirely with Flash and obviously doesn’t use any native widget frameworks. Adobe’s Flash implementation for Linux is lousy, so I began my tests with relatively low expectations. As expected, Hulu Desktop is extremely resource intensive on the Linux platform. It uses significantly more memory and processor power than Totem when playing full-screen video content. Aside from occasional stuttering, video playback performance was adequate when I was not running any other resource-intensive tasks in the background.
Posted in Arstechnica | 
Tags: Beta, Desktop Computer, Desktop Player, Implementation, Intensive Tasks, Linux Installation, Linux Platform, Low Expectations, Mac Os X, Os X, Playback Performance, Processor Power, Quad Core Desktop, Resource Hog, Stuttering, Totem, Video Content, Video Playback, Video Service, Widget