Here you can find hints and tips if you are having issues getting the Adobe AIR based Flex SDK Installer to work, as well as details of how to use the command-line to install the Flex SDK using Ant without requiring Adobe AIR.

If you had installed a previous (pre-release) version of the installer app, you will probably get an error because of the mismatched certificates. If you see such an error, you may need to uninstall the installer before continuing.


Ant-based installer script

The Ant-based installer script doesn't require the Adobe AIR runtime to be installed, nor does it use a GUI app. Instead, it runs on the command line using Apache Ant. The Ant-based installer is the preferred method of install on Linux, but it also may be used on both Windows and macOS.

First, download the binary package from http://flex.apache.org/download-binaries.html and unpack it.

wget https://dlcdn.apache.org/flex/4.16.1/binaries/apache-flex-sdk-4.16.1-bin.tar.gz

tar zxvf apache-flex-sdk-4.16.1-bin.tar.gz

Next, navigate into the unpacked directory.

cd apache-flex-sdk-4.16.1-bin/

Then, run the installer.xml script using Ant.

On macOS and Windows, you will need to tell the script to target version 32.0 of both Adobe Flash Player and the Adobe AIR SDK. 

# Windows and macOS only

ant -f installer.xml -Dflash.sdk.version=32.0 -Dair.sdk.version=32.0

However, on Linux, you should target version 32.0 of Adobe Flash Player, but skip the Adobe AIR SDK.

# Linux

ant -f installer.xml -Dflash.sdk.version=32.0 -Dair.donot.ask=true

On all platforms, you will be asked to agree to license terms for some additional components that must be downloaded for the Flex SDK to function properly.

After the installer script completes, verify that the Apache Flex compiler runs successfully.

bin/mxmlc

You should see output similar to the following:

Loading configuration file.........apache-flex-sdk-4.16.1-bin/frameworks/flex-config.xml

Apache Flex Compiler (mxmlc)

Version 4.16.1 build 20171115

Copyright 2017 The Apache Software Foundation.

Error: a target file must be specified

Use 'mxmlc -help' for information about using the command line.

Adobe AIR-based installer on macOS (10.9 or later)

The Adobe AIR-based installer app is not signed or notarized, which prevents modern versions of macOS from verifying its origin. Attempting to open the Adobe AIR-based installer app will cause macOS to block it and display a warning that the app is from an unknown developer. For a workaround, see Apple: Open a Mac app from an unknown developer.

Adobe AIR-based installer on Linux

Adobe no longer provide updates for the Adobe AIR runtime on Linux. You must use the Ant-based installation method.

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