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Video Conferencing for Unix?

Posted by Cliff on from the it's-2001-already-where-are-the-vidphones? dept.

LordDavon asks: "I have been trying to find a good video conferencing solution for Linux. The main issue is that my family and many friends are subjects under the Microsoft tyranny and use Microsoft NetMeeting. Although it is a nicely featured application (Whiteboard, VNC, File Transfer, etc...), I am failing to find a comparable application for Linux. Is there a single, low cost, multi-platform application that can compete?" While I'm not so sure about the existence of a whole suite of Open Source applications that can compete with NetMeeting, are there apps that are usable solely for video conferencing? We touched on this exact question two years ago, we also talked about shared whiteboards as well, although a bit more recently. Are any of you out there using Linux (or any Unix clone for that matter) in Video Conferencing? If so, how?

3 of 20 comments (clear)

  1. Compete with Netmeeting? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's easy.

    1) Make your program run as a device driver
    2) Completely bring the system to its knees anytime someone launches the program

    That's it!

    At least, that's my experience with the steaming pile of crap Netmeeting.

  2. I haven't tried this: by Peter+H.S. · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://cvw.sourceforge.net/ seems to fit your bill somewhat.

    The Java client should run on Win, Posix (Linux?) and even Palm (no video I guess).

    However, it does require a dedicated document server.

    Projects like confman (java too) seems very slick, but is only for people having acces for Mbone (ip6?).

    GnomeMeeting (http://www.gnomemeeting.org) is very slick too. It supports the H.323 protocol, so it should work with MS Netmeeting. However no chat, whiteboards etc, only video and voice. (those functions usually requires the T.120 protocol).

  3. www.openh323.org by carleton · · Score: 3, Informative

    I haven't been tracking them for a quite a while, but they seem to have a start towards what you're looking for. One big problem they were having (which may or may not still be true) was that some of the other protocols being used by netmeeting and other videoconferencing over networks were patented.
    Besides, who really wants to see their boss/coworkers? Wouldn't it be better to get cracking on some manner of better looking avatars?