In this post we are going to review some of the video conferencing services with native applications for Linux Although this type of meeting is far from having the boom it achieved during the pandemic, it is still used in some areas.
We will leave out for the moment the solutions open source that allow us to create our own video conferencing system and focus on freemium services that are more popular.
What are video conferencing applications for?
Somehow I managed to avoid video conferencing during the pandemic, but just like the protagonist of "Death in Samarkand" my destiny ended up catching up with me. In my case, in the form of a course so poorly organized that it uses two different platforms depending on the teacher and day of the week.
Video conferencing became popular in the late XNUMXs for Facilitate multilateral communication between geographically remote people. At first, these had to be moved to the facilities of the service provider companies, since satellite transmission and reception facilities were required, but thanks to the Internet, multimedia compression algorithms and the increase in the capacity of computers and mobile phones, it is now within the reach of almost everyone.
Actually, the first commercial solution was presented in 1965, but it spent 15 years on the market without arousing much interest.
As for the general public, they preferred writing-based tools like ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, or Internet telephony programs like Skype. Even today, the popular WhatsApp is used primarily for the asynchronous exchange of voice or text messages, although it has the capacity for group meetings in real time.
Video conferencing services with native applications for Linux
Zoom
It was not the first to appear, but it became so popular during the pandemic that its name is almost synonymous with video conferencing. It first appeared in September 2012 as a beta and in January 2013 as a final version. At first it only allowed meetings of up to 15 people but currently it supports groups of 1000. The service has an application store developed by third parties that increase its functionality. A few years ago questions arose about your security policies.
The official app can be installed in the form of a Flatpak package with the command:
flatpak install flathub us.zoom.Zoom
You can also download the package for your Linux distribution from this page and install it either manually or using the package manager.
The commands are:
sudo dpkg -i nombre del paquete.deb for Debian and derivatives
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sudo rpm -i nombre del paquete.rpm for Fedora, RHEL, SUSE and Oracle.
In the case of Debian derivatives you may have to run the command:
sudo apt --fix-broken install</code
WebEX
Although less well known than Zoom, this Cisco product aimed at the corporate market is somewhat its predecessor as Zoom was founded by some former executives and engineers from the project. Its origin can be traced back to 1995 when it emerged as a tool for online meetings and webinars. It was originally offered under the subscription modality as a remote collaboration tool.
It currently offers the possibility of individual calls, meetings, instant messaging, surveys and integration with productivity tools such as Google Drive and Microsoft Office.
The installation has a very small complication.
- Let this page.
- We go down a few seconds until the web detects that we use Linux and changes the green buttons.
- If it does not change, we go to Other operating system and look for Linux.
There are two installation options: Ubuntu and Red Hat.
In Ubuntu we install with:
sudo dpkg -i webex.deb
And on Red Hat with:
sudo dnf localinstall Webex.rpm
Should I install the applications? In my experience, it is better to use the browser it takes up less disk space, you don't have to worry about updates, it consumes less resources and it tends to have more features. But, about tastes there is nothing written.