How To Watch Hulu On Arch Linux Based Distros

Since Hulu uses Adobe Flash DRM for its video system, its video player does not work by default in Arch Linux-based distros, even with Flash Player installed.

We have earlier discussed how to watch Hulu on Ubuntu based Linux. In this article, we´ll focus on making Hulu work in Arch Linux-based distros.

The first thing to note is that due to the way in which Flash Player is handled in Linux for Google Chrome and Chromium, even with this fix Hulu cannot be run in those browsers. This method can only fix the Hulu video player for Firefox.

This method works through the use of the HAL daemon, which is required by the DRM system that Hulu uses.

Installing HAL

If you have not yet already, then you should be sure to install the firefox and flashplugin packages from the official repositories.

sudo pacman -S firefox
sudo pacman -S flashplugin


Then once you have Flash Player working in Firefox, you will need to install the hal-info and hal packages from the AUR. You can do this using an AUR client such as yaourt, or by git cloning the installation file repos and packaging them with makepkg and installing the generated packages with sudo pacman -U PKGNAMEHERE.

yaourt hal-info
yaourt hal

Running HAL

Once you have installed all of the necessary packages, you now need to start the HAL daemon provided by the hal and hal-info packages. You can do this by running the following commands to start the daemon, and enable it to be run on boot.

sudo systemctl start hal
sudo systemctl enable hal

Once you have started and enabled the HAL service, you can check to make sure that it is working by running the following command.

systemctl status hal

If the service is running then you should get an output which begins with something like this.

[[email protected] ~]$ systemctl status hal
● hal.service - Hardware Abstraction Layer
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/hal.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
Active: active (running) since Tue 2015-12-22 09:54:49 EST; 57min ago

Once you have successfully started and enabled the HAL service you should be able to watch Hulu videos in Firefox. You also do not need to reboot your system, as you have already run the HAL daemon on the current login.

For further information on the HAL package, see the Arch Linux Wiki’s page on Flash DRM content.