Conferencing and Freebsd

R

rdindir

Hello All,

I wanted to try video conferencing (more google meet) and wanted to ask what to download to make it work.

I am using FreeBSD 13.1 and am using Firefox (103.0) and also have chromium installed (which interesting enough has version 103.0.5060.134).

On the net, I have found a web site/page (https://freebsdfoundation.org/blog/status-of-online-conference-software-on-freebsd/) that says google meet works (with camera and audio).

Would it be enough to install pulseaudio and webcamd to make google meet work? Does anybody have more information on what to install (audio, camera) to make conferencing work?

Best Regards,
Riza
 
For conferencing in general, these three work with little effort:
Skype - web for skype in iridium or chromium
Zoom - in firefox
Teams - in firefox

Of course, webcamd needs to be running.
 
Hello Geezer,

I had pulseaudio already installed. Installed webcamd. But when I open google meet on firefox and try to start an instant meeting, it does display page that is black, and continuously asks for audio permissions. It says "Allow meet.google.com use our microphone" and it lists the "Realtek ALC283 (Analog 2.0+HP/2.0)". It continuously asks for this permission (when I change tabs and come back).

I am running Firefox as an ordinary user that is in the wheel group (also included in the webcamd group).

The black (black) screen tells me that webcamd is not working I guess.
 
Quick update.

I could get pulseaudio, and webcamd work on chrome.Did test on google meet, and on webcam test site (https://webcamtests.com/).

But I can not get this to work on firefox. Was anybody able to make this work with firefox?

Firefox keeps on asking for permissions for both the webcam and audio. I click on allow, but no video on google meet.

Also using firefoxon the WebCam Test site (https://webcamtests.com/) it detecs my webcam, asks for permission, which I allow. Then it waits there, no video. When I switch tabs and get back to the webcam test tab, it asks for permissions again. Strange...
 
Can you see video with multimedia/pwcview? If so then webcamd is working properly.

You won't be able to get permissions for the webcam or microphone if it is already in use by another program/browser/tab.

It seems as though you merely need to check the configuration of your browser.

Google owns chrome/chromium, so google meet might not work under firefox.
 
pulseaudio is not (never) needed. It usually (always) causes more problems than it solves (none)...


On firefox IIRC it might help setting media.cubeb.backend to 'oss' to force firefox using oss.
I'm using firefox ESR and audio on e.g. discord is working fine, also video + audio is working with jitsi, nextcloud talk and mitel one without problems (although for the latter one I have to use chrome/chromium because they still couldn't fix some site rendering bugs with firefox...).

On one of my desktop systems though, I always have to manually set the webcam device by first identifying the ugen-device via usbconfig or webcamd -l and then specify it via webcamd -d <device>. On my laptop it 'just works' with webcamd auto-detecting the correct device...

And just a wild idea: the webcam doesn't have a separate button/switch to actually activate the CCD-sensor or some kind of hatch to cover the lens? (Yes, I fell over this myself once... :rolleyes: )

As Geezer mentioned you can also use multimedia/pwcview to test your webcamd settings. Or just head to https://meet.jit.si and start a meeting. If everything works there, chances are that the conferencing website you are trying to use is actively blocking your specific browser or OS (e.g. microsoft teams is explicitly blocking FreeBSD and other non-commercial OS). User agent spoofing sometimes works on those pesky sites, but best advice would be: just don't use them or any other product of the same company...
 
Basically I wanted to make a summary adding the importance of the user agent and I just realized that sko covered this topic. I can't delete, so here it stays. :)

1. Set up your webcam correctly.

TrueNAS - Welcome to the Open Source Storage Era

TrueNAS is the World's #1 Open Source Storage. Based on OpenZFS, it is trusted by millions and deployed worldwide.
www.freebsdnews.com www.freebsdnews.com

2. Check your browser settings.

How to manage your camera and microphone permissions with Firefox | Firefox Help

How to enable or block sites from accessing your camera and microphone on your desktop or mobile device.
support.mozilla.org support.mozilla.org

3. On the other hand, try changing the user agent that identifies your system in the browser, some sites tend to block services to ensure compatibility and close around them.

addons.mozilla.org

User-Agent Switcher and Manager – Get this Extension for ? Firefox (en-US)

Download User-Agent Switcher and Manager for Firefox. Spoof websites trying to gather information about your web navigation—like your browser type and operating system—to deliver distinct content you may not want.
addons.mozilla.org addons.mozilla.org
 
Geezer said:
Can you see video with multimedia/pwcview? If so then webcamd is working properly.

You won't be able to get permissions for the webcam or microphone if it is already in use by another program/browser/tab.

It seems as though you merely need to check the configuration of your browser.

Google owns chrome/chromium, so google meet might not work under firefox.
Click to expand...
Yes pwcview is working.
 
sko said:
pulseaudio is not (never) needed. It usually (always) causes more problems than it solves (none)...


On firefox IIRC it might help setting media.cubeb.backend to 'oss' to force firefox using oss.
I'm using firefox ESR and audio on e.g. discord is working fine, also video + audio is working with jitsi, nextcloud talk and mitel one without problems (although for the latter one I have to use chrome/chromium because they still couldn't fix some site rendering bugs with firefox...).

On one of my desktop systems though, I always have to manually set the webcam device by first identifying the ugen-device via usbconfig or webcamd -l and then specify it via webcamd -d <device>. On my laptop it 'just works' with webcamd auto-detecting the correct device...

And just a wild idea: the webcam doesn't have a separate button/switch to actually activate the CCD-sensor or some kind of hatch to cover the lens? (Yes, I fell over this myself once... :rolleyes: )

As Geezer mentioned you can also use multimedia/pwcview to test your webcamd settings. Or just head to https://meet.jit.si and start a meeting. If everything works there, chances are that the conferencing website you are trying to use is actively blocking your specific browser or OS (e.g. microsoft teams is explicitly blocking FreeBSD and other non-commercial OS). User agent spoofing sometimes works on those pesky sites, but best advice would be: just don't use them or any other product of the same company...
Click to expand...
Nope it does not have a switch or anything like that.

I am using google meets.
 
sko said:
pulseaudio is not (never) needed. It usually (always) causes more problems than it solves (none)...


On firefox IIRC it might help setting media.cubeb.backend to 'oss' to force firefox using oss.
I'm using firefox ESR and audio on e.g. discord is working fine, also video + audio is working with jitsi, nextcloud talk and mitel one without problems (although for the latter one I have to use chrome/chromium because they still couldn't fix some site rendering bugs with firefox...).

On one of my desktop systems though, I always have to manually set the webcam device by first identifying the ugen-device via usbconfig or webcamd -l and then specify it via webcamd -d <device>. On my laptop it 'just works' with webcamd auto-detecting the correct device...

And just a wild idea: the webcam doesn't have a separate button/switch to actually activate the CCD-sensor or some kind of hatch to cover the lens? (Yes, I fell over this myself once... :rolleyes: )

As Geezer mentioned you can also use multimedia/pwcview to test your webcamd settings. Or just head to https://meet.jit.si and start a meeting. If everything works there, chances are that the conferencing website you are trying to use is actively blocking your specific browser or OS (e.g. microsoft teams is explicitly blocking FreeBSD and other non-commercial OS). User agent spoofing sometimes works on those pesky sites, but best advice would be: just don't use them or any other product of the same company...
Click to expand...
pulseaudio was already installed. So I did not specifically install it. I thought of removing it, but it might be a dependency... Maybe it is even used to play videos and audio on youtube and other sites. So will not at the moment remove pulseaudio.
 
I tried setting media.cubeb.backend to oss but did not work.

Also on the messages displayed after dmesg, there is a line that says webcamd was started. I am not positive on that. I will check that again and get back on that.

But when I do webcamd -l I get this message

webcamd -l
Available device(s):
Show webcamd usage:
webcamd -h
webcamd 1481 - - webcamd: No USB device match found

my webcam is at ugen2.2. If webcamd did not work, pwcview would not work I guess.
 
Re user-agent:
In an attempt to use skype under firefox, I changed the user-agent to look like chrome under windows. I even tried a few different user agents. Skype sort of did work, a bit, but not properly. Skype needs more than merely the user-agent. Don't know about google meet, never used it.

Re pulseaudio:
Everyone hates it except me. I don't love it, I put up with it. Even if I turn it off in xfce4, something turns it on again. I just live with it and it is no big thing. Certainly, the various conferencing can work with pulseaudio.
 
rdindir said:
I tried setting media.cubeb.backend to oss but did not work.

Also on the messages displayed after dmesg, there is a line that says webcamd was started. I am not positive on that. I will check that again and get back on that.

But when I do webcamd -l I get this message

webcamd -l
Available device(s):
Show webcamd usage:
webcamd -h
webcamd 1481 - - webcamd: No USB device match found

my webcam is at ugen2.2. If webcamd did not work, pwcview would not work I guess.
Click to expand...
The console.log has these lines, that confirms that webcamd has started.

Sep 6 17:51:48 mymachine kernel: Starting webcamd.
Sep 6 17:51:48 mymachine kernel: webcamd 423 - - Attached to ugen2.2[0]

I also comfirmed that pwcview is working, after booting the system, I can operate the webcam, the light goes on on my laptop and I can see the video.
 
Finally got firefox working for google meet. The microphone, sound, and webcam is working. It had no problems all along. But the reason is really interesting, to say the least.

I am using twm as my window manager (as the stock x11 manager, have configured it and am using it as a lightweight alternative, I have no comments after this, hehe). Anyways it turned out that when firefox has no permissions for the meet.google.com site, it asks for permissions for both the webcam and the mic/speakers. I was clicking on the button with the mouse to allow permissions, but it was not acting on it. The browser was closing the permissions dialog and I was thinking that it really had given permissions. But it was not the case. I was not seeing the permissions in the "settings" under "privacy & security" (still not seeing it). Whenever I was changing the tab and got back to the google meets tab, it was asking me for permissions again. And I was scratching my head, and thinking what the heck...

I was suspecting that the dialog was not working properly. After a quick search, I found and read on this forum somewhere about twm and firefox having problems with such things.

This is how I got it to work. When you enter google meet, firefox will ask you for the permissions for the webcam and the mic/speakers. You have to use Alt+A to add these permissions. When you move the mouse into the dialog you will not be able to use Alt+A to add the permissions, the shortcut does not work (since the main firefox window is loosing focus, and the focus gets to the dialog). You have to operate the shortcut for "add" (Alt-A) when you are in the firefox window, and the window has focus. Clicking on the Add button will not add these permissions, altough it will close the dialog and you will think that it has added these permissions.

Wanted to share...

Regards
 
rdindir said:
I was suspecting that the dialog was not working properly. After a quick search, I found and read on this forum somewhere about twm and firefox having problems with such things.
Click to expand...
twm is the windowsmanager of X11. As I wrote before:

forums.freebsd.org

firefox is not unix, it is something horrible

Do you agree? If you find with google a pdf file, you cannot get the URL, because it downloads the file and presents a local URL to the downloaded file. In particular, you cannot do a bookmark to the original URL. Copy with mouse key1 in the results of google and trying to paste with key 2...
forums.freebsd.org forums.freebsd.org

Firefox devebloaters are perhaps using MS Windows or an everywhere inflated linux desktop.
Firefox is becoming always more frustrating.
 
I have an old camara:

ugen0.3: <Sunplus Technology Co., Ltd. Generic Digital camera>

run

webcamd -d ugen0.3 -N Sunplus-Technology-Co---Ltd--Generic-Digital-camera -S unknown -M 0

With pcview I get a dark window. It reacts a little when I move the camera.

Is it normal to have problems with old cameras?
 
hruodr said:
I have an old camara:

ugen0.3: <Sunplus Technology Co., Ltd. Generic Digital camera>

run

webcamd -d ugen0.3 -N Sunplus-Technology-Co---Ltd--Generic-Digital-camera -S unknown -M 0

With pcview I get a dark window. It reacts a little when I move the camera.

Is it normal to have problems with old cameras?
Click to expand...
I did not have problems with the camera. I installed webcamd and it was working.
 
hruodr said:
twm is the windowsmanager of X11. As I wrote before:

forums.freebsd.org

firefox is not unix, it is something horrible

Do you agree? If you find with google a pdf file, you cannot get the URL, because it downloads the file and presents a local URL to the downloaded file. In particular, you cannot do a bookmark to the original URL. Copy with mouse key1 in the results of google and trying to paste with key 2...
forums.freebsd.org forums.freebsd.org

Firefox devebloaters are perhaps using MS Windows or an everywhere inflated linux desktop.
Firefox is becoming always more frustrating.
Click to expand...
What browser would you or anyone in the list recommend?

But still firefox is a good browser, and I am still using it. In this particular use case it was a real pain, until I was able to identify the problem. I am also using chrome. No problems there.
 
rdindir said:
I did not have problems with the camera. I installed webcamd and it was working.
Click to expand...
With a newer camera works, but I wanted to try with the old.

rdindir said:
What browser would you or anyone in the list recommend?
Click to expand...
This is an old, unsolvable problem. I cannot recommend.

The ones that design webpages decide what browser we must use.
They decided: chrome or firefox. But they are retiring "support" for
firefox, then there will be no alternative to chrome.
 
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