Video-calling apps for Puppy...

[mikewalsh]

Evening, all.

Updated information - as of 1st July 2024 - can be found at the following link, due to several recent changes:-

https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 55#p124555

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Video-calling apps are in higher demand than ever ATM. Darry19662018 has already mentioned Zoom:-

https://puppylinux.rockedge.org/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=81

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We also have the perennial M$ Windoze favourite, Skype.....which is mostly pretty reliable in 64-bit Pups nowadays. However, don't go to the Skype website for downloads.....go direct to the Skype repo:-

https://repo.skype.com/deb/pool/main/s/skypeforlinux/

Necessary, because M$ have coding diaorrhea where Skype is concerned. They release a new version every 10 days on average....

Note; for Skype, a re-boot is advisable between uninstalling the old, and installing the new. I know it's not normal Linux practice to do so, but it just works so much better this way; a 'legacy' of the way things work in Windoze, no doubt..!

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Finally, a newcomer to Puppy - Google's "Duo". This is a development from Hangouts, which is disappearing very soon; Hangouts was primarily a 'chat' app, which had video-calling 'tacked-on' later in its life-cycle, and which was never that good a quality.

Duo, on the other hand, was designed from the ground up to do just one thing, and do it very well.....one-to-one video-calling. Notice I don't say video-conferencing, because it's not intended for that; for person to person, however, the video and audio streams are of astonishing clarity.

https://duo.google.com

Zoom and Skype won't work in anything other than a 64-bit Puppy. Duo, on the other hand, being a webapp, will work in a 32-bit Pup.....if you have the right sort of browser. Google, needless to say, have optimized it around the Chromium code-base; it doesn't work very well in Firefox.

The 32-bit versions of my Iron & Vivaldi 'portables' will work fine with it:-

https://puppylinux.rockedge.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=59

Mike.

[peppyy]

Hey Mike. We now have 3 computers running Fossa 64 and I have found that zoom portable will not run reliably on the i3 laptop with only 4gb ram, (maybe 15 minutes).
Tried it on my desktop with the 6 core amd and 32gb ram and it works fairly well.

Still looking for something to use with the second grade class on the laptop so we can get them into the greenhouse this spring, (Virtually). I know they all have chromebooks so probably need something like google meet? I am guessing that would need chrome. Any ideas?

[Clarity]

Thanks for this thread, Mike.

I have been a user of DUO for several years. It is browser based, is VERY handy for laptop users.

It can make audio calls or video calls or multimedia messages or conference multiple family members or friends. It, for me, is OUTSTANDING in performance, clear communications (due to its compression protocols used),and ease of use! Security is baked into this service.

HANGOUTS which I have been a user of for over a decade is also outstanding, but it migrated into the business fold under its new name MEET!

Where DUO allows the user to initiate calling by merely dialing. MEET is an invitational video solution where one sets up a "room" thereby inviting participants (just as ZOOM does). I prefer MEET for the business needs I have as it affords greater protections than ZOOMs and the others (I am sure some/many may not agree, but for me it has NOT ben hacked, thus it provides the security I seek).

When I am signed into my Google ID, I merely open the browser to duo.google.com and make a call to family/friends...Too EASY!

Hope this experience is helpful

[mikewalsh]

@peppyy :-

Um.....yeah. Hangouts is being dismantled during the first half of this year, and its functionality being re-distributed; the chat/messaging portion to Google Chat (which will run from within a GMail a/c).....and the video calling portion is being re-launched into Google Meet. Nice thing about both "Meet" (video conference calls) and also "Duo" (one-to-one video calls) is that these latter two will run on 32-bit systems from any Chromium 'clone'.

You "pays your money & takes your pick", like..! The latter two provide decent alternatives to Skype/Teams/Zoom for users of older, 32-bit hardware, definitely; tonight, I'm in Sailor Enceladus' Slacko 5.7.1, and both are running sweetly in Iron-portable v88 running from a Xenialpup 7.5 'chroot'. Admittedly, with 32GB RAM I can pull stunts like this.....but it does work.

@Clarity :- I didn't know "Duo" will also do multi-party video calls. How do you set these up, giving that "Duo" doesn't use a 'meeting-room' with invites?

Mike.

[Clarity]

Conference calling (up to 19) via DUO:

1. To speak with multiple people, you have to create a group of the individuals you want to call.

2. At the main Google Duo screen, tap Create group.

3. Select the people you want to add to the group,

4. then tap Done.

5. Click the group icon to initiate calling the people

Here's a PCMAG article with pictures that can be your guide for all things DUO, currently.

Enjoy

[peppyy]

@mikewalsh The school uses zoom for their meetings so I did some testing It seems the limitation on the laptop is memory. I noticed after it was running for about 1/2 an hour that the memory was maxed out and the little 512mb swap file was full. I have it on a separate partition including a folder for recordings etc. It is 64 bit and upgradable so I could double the ram to 8gb.

Being it will be used in the greenhouse, I was hoping to use the laptop. I certainly don't want to drag this beast out there twice a week

Perhaps a wifi camera might be an option if I can use it as a second camera through this machine, or maybe the school has an extra chromebook like they give the students

[peppyy]

@Clarity I will have to check with my daughter who is their teacher and see what else they may use. I would much rather be a client instead of a host.

Thanks for the info, I will check it out.

[Clarity]

Hi @peppyy

The primary-secondary schools I am most associated issue Chromebooks and use MEET for classroom and conferencing. Very strong security embedding in the use of the Google Classroom infrastucture.

MEET can merely be used via a browser, also, with their IDs.

There is nothing wrong with MEET outside of business/classroom for personal use. It, like ZOOM, and others requires the author/original person to issue the invitations when starting a video session.

DUO and MEET are distinctly different offerings and are "foreign" to each other.

Thus they have separate use steps with DUO being akin to a telephone with a screen.

Hope this help in understanding.

P.S. There are tons of Youtube videos done by teachers-professors on the internet. Most are very good. In fact, it is easy for any of us to start our own classroom similar to what school-districts have for our school age kids or grandkids. I have been thinking about doing such for my grands where I could provide a classroom setting akin to what they have at school: So "no learning curve" and familiar resources to them. And we can interact as if we are in a "real" classroom/lab. Free from Google.

[peppyy]

@Clarity

Thanks, she said she can use Meet. I will give that a try.

[peppyy]

@Clarity Thanks for the in depth reply. It didn't work with Palemoon or Chromium, however it works very well on Firefox. (Even before it was updated) on all three fossa comps. Still have a couple tests to do but it looks like a winner, and my daughter says it works for them at the school!

[Clarity]

I counsel my grands to use MEET for school (and business use) while to use DUO for all personal communications. Both has extreme security baked in.

DUO talks/calls/messages ALL platforms; namely PCs or all Cell users.

Enjoy!

[mow9902]

I find these two services (via browser) work fine for me using chromium based browsers on F96 on a very old Dell laptop.
Jitsi - https://jitsi.org/

Freeconference.com
https://hello.freeconference.com/

[mikewalsh]

Afternoon, gang.

Thought I needed to update the info here somewhat, in light of multiple recent changes.

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Skype, it seems, is now ONLY available in Canonical's famously wonky package format; the Snap. M$ couldn't even decide to use the more popular format - the Flatpak - could they? No, they automatically assume that IF you're running Linux, then you MUST be using Ubuntu!

This means that the previous repo where the .deb packages were formerly hosted (found for us by @peebee ) no longer exists. So I definitely won't ever be building any desktop versions of Skype again.

The online, 'web' version of Skype still works properly. This is the one I'll now recommend.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Google's former "Duo" video-calling app also no longer exists. If you search for it online, you're now re-directed to Google "Meet". This is currently the sole video-calling app Google offers.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Jitsi-Portable I used to offer has also fallen by the wayside. Jitsi have moved to a weird model where if you want to make a call to anyone, you MUST now wait for a "moderator" to make an appearance before this is allowed. The AppImage that the portable was built around appears incapable of validating this 'request'. Once again, I'll recommend the online 'web' version. Here, you can choose to become your own moderator, and can be up-and-calling within a matter of seconds.

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The WIRE video-calling app continues to function flawlessly as either client or web-app.

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With thanks to Ozsouth for the information and link, Talky.io is another good option. Details in the next post.

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One more option is the free plan from Cisco's 'Webex' communication suite. Nominally a paid suite, this is a pretty usable free webapp. You do need to create an account, but for the available freebies you get - from a company that have specialised in this kind of thing for years - it's a small price to pay...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another viable option is now the purely online version of Microsoft's Teams.....available by visiting the online Microsoft 365 site at

https://office.com

.....and clicking on the 'Teams' link in the left-hand sidebar. Seems to work very well, and is the first online video-calling app where my Logitech c920 suffers from no lag or stuttering whatsoever (something that can't be said for the online Skype webapp).

You don't HAVE to have a Microsoft a/c here, but it very definitely helps. I use the one I set-up for use with Skype some years ago.

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I must now say that I honestly can't recommend the Zoom client app any longer. With the addition of the Electron stuff, this app is now almost a gigabyte in size when installed. For a video-calling app, this is frankly ridiculous. And with every release, they keep adding requirements for the very newest, cutting-edge builds of everything.

This is ONE case where the web-app is very much inferior to the client app. And it shows; video quality is dreadful, and suffers from some serious lag.....and half the time, audio doesn't even work. When it does, it's crackly, 'noisy' and really awful to listen to.

Talk about putting all your eggs into one basket.

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For many, the above apps usually work correctly in Puppy with Chromium-based browsers. They'll only work as they should in Firefox (and related browsers) in the very newest Pups/Dogs/etc, where PulseAudio or Pipewire is now the default, integrated audio solution.....due to Mozilla's predilection for matching the browser to whatever the global system default happens to be set to. Trying to set Firefox to use video-calling apps with ALSA is almost impossible without a LOT of messing-around, since they simply will not provide a way to select your audio input like Chromium does (from a drop-down list).

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This seems to be the way the world is moving; only online versions of anything seem to function properly any more. Linux client apps are getting squeezed-out, it seems.....but with a reasonably capable machine, there's very little reason NOT to use the web-apps. At least they're regularly maintained & kept up-to-date.

Sorry for the perhaps despondent tone, mes amis, but I have no control over ANY of this. All I can do is to report the facts as they stand. Wish I could be a bit more positive.... .....but we DO at least have several viable options.

Mike.

[ozsouth]

For up to 6 people, talky.io is free & browser based - works well in firefox & chrome at least.

[OscarTalks]

My suggestion for anyone who wants to do Video-Calling is to try Linphone
Go to https://linphone.org
There you can download the AppImage which works well in BookwormPup64
Easy to set up launcher scripts, add an icon and .desktop file for a menu entry (ask if you need help with this)
Versions are also available for other devices so you can video-call between Puppy and smartphones etc.

Also sign up for a free SIP address with Linphone. Other providers offer free SIP addresses which also work if you prefer, but a Linphone one is easy to set up and fully functional in the Linphone application. Your SIP address will look like:-
sip:yourname@sip.linphone.org
This is what you use to log in (with your password) and it is what you give to your friends and contacts, tell them to install Linphone as well of course.
Uses the open Session Initiation Protocol rather than (possibly questionable) 'big tech' company protocols, but you can encrypt the media streams for privacy.
Also avoids having to use WebRTC in a browser.

[mikewalsh]

@ozsouth :-

Thanks for the suggestion of Talky, Oz. Looks good!

@OscarTalks :-

Thanks for the reminder about Linphone, Oscar. I'll be honest, though; I've never got on with this one.....the multitude of settings for the SIP protocol to work kinda freaks me out somewhat. And of course, as always it requires the very newest of everything to work correctly...

As you know, it's rare I bother with the newest Pups (I know you're something of a Debian afficionado, of course, so Bookworm Pup would appeal to you). I much prefer older, more stable ones, so it's unlikely I'm going to move to one of the very newest Pups just to try out summat I don't really like anyway! BUT:-

.....the suggestion is certainly appreciated, and probably by many others if not by me. After all, I'm trying to maintain this thread with up-to-date information on the "state of play", so we definitely want info on everything currently available AND functional.

Thanks!

Mike.

[OscarTalks]

I'm trying to maintain this thread with up-to-date information on the "state of play", so we definitely want info on everything currently available AND functional.

Hello Mike,
It might be worth taking a fresh look if you haven't done so for a while. The devs do seem to be aware that configuration can be a difficulty for people and it looks to me like one of the things they have been working on is producing something which will work out of the box as far as possible without bewildering the user. For example, logging in with a Linphone account via the 'Assistant' should get you connected with settings that will function.

With any calling application the user will often need to configure devices. One thing with puppies earlier than BookwormPup is that they are mostly ALSA only, but Linphone AppImage does seem to have ALSA options whereas some other calling programs will require pulse audio. So sound may be an issue, but if not using unconventional hardware (I like to have a USB soundcard with connections through an external hardware audio mixer) then the more usual setups, default mics and cameras, may be easily configurable.

One thing which we really require any calling application to do is run quietly in the background and then give us a ring notification when someone calls us. The Linphone AppImage sits in the tray on Puppy and for me it rings if I get a SIP call or a landline call (additional provider required for this).

[mikewalsh]

Just to add another one to the above list, Cisco's 'Webex' appears to be a very usable option.

Nominally a paid 'suite' of interactive, online & cross-platform apps - for keeping in touch and collaboration (for businesses, individuals, anyone really) - they have a pretty flexible & usable free browser webapp:-

https://www.webex.com/suite/meetings.html

.....create a free a/c - click on Plans & Pricing - and go with the Free plan.

This gives you a 40 minute time-limit per individual meeting (but no 'wait' time interval between one meeting and the next), and up to 100 people can be in on the call at the same time. Screen sharing is available, as is a whiteboard, and meetings can be recorded if desired.

All of which is pretty good for a free plan from a company that usually looks to sell you stuff...

I've already created my own free a/c, and have added Webex to the 'update' post above.

Mike.

[bigpup]

@mikewalsh

Suggest you correct the first post with the updated info.

[mikewalsh]

@mikewalsh

Suggest you correct the first post with the updated info.

Good idea.......though I thought I already had!

Link to the 'update' post now added at the top of post #1.

Mike.

[mikewalsh]

.....and another one to add to the list (for those with relatives hugging Windows tighter than a limpet!)

Microsoft 'Teams' now has a purely online version.....accessible through

https://office.com

.....and clicking the link in the left-hand sidebar. It helps to have a Microsoft a/c; I signed-in using the one I created some time ago for Skype. Seems to work very well.

Once again, I've created a 'webapp' from Slimjet, so's I can open it in its own window on the desktop without needing to run the browser itself. I've added this to the 'update' list above.

(This one should help where calls to my sister are concerned. She, too, agrees that the online version of Skype is not that great..!)

Mike.

[trister]

All major calling apps have app images of web interface so they all work in linux.
I've used the appimages of Viber,Zoom and WhatsApp. I use the web version of skype and Webex. It's amazing that with a 400MB puppy/dog you can make your old PC laptop a remote lesson system. I can attend online lessons everywhere.

[norgo]

teams-for-linux 1.9.6-7 x86_64.sfs

ready to use package (electron crap included)
This version needs no pulseaudio installation. Libpulse and loopback are sufficient and in package included.

teams-for-linux-1.9.6-7-x86_64.sfs ( 92 mb )

@mikewalsh HD Pro Webcam C920 is working out of the box

[peebee]

However, don't go to the Skype website for downloads.....go direct to the Skype repo:-

https://repo.skype.com/deb/pool/main/s/skypeforlinux/

Necessary, because M$ have coding diaorrhea where Skype is concerned. They release a new version every 10 days on average....

Skype is no longer provided as a .deb - it has become a "Snap"........ which is just an .sfs
https://snapcraft.io/skype

Latest version = 8.128.0.207