Adobe skipped a version of Flash for Linux and released stable versions of the Flash 9 player for Windows and Mac OS X long before the beta of Flash 9 to Linux users. Paul Betlem, senior director of engineering for Adobe, explained why the process is taking so long.
Betlem says that several factors have contributed to the tardiness of Flash on Linux. The primary problem, says Betlem, is the complexity of porting the Flash player to Linux due to differing libraries used for sound, video, and type on different Linux distributions.