The times We're Living In
 

All this 'Social Distancing' Stuff is really beginning to bite here in Ireland. It's this bad: There was a general social media reaction on Sunday morning that too many folks got too close Saturday night in a well-known night life strip so by afternoon, the Government ordered all the pubs and hotel bars (the favourite loophole) to close. It transpired they didn't have to bother, because by lunchtime the publican's lobby group had already closed their own doors, and many of the pubs had closed themselves. 40,000 workers are out of a job!

My thoughts were: The English had Ireland colonised for ~750 years, but they never dared to try that!:):).

Given this situation, I can see the possible need to hold the occasional web meeting, so it might be good to get the low-down how to do that. I am based in Europe, and reckon my own bandwidth/security isn't enough to transmit to everyone, so I'm prepared to buy bandwidth. Can I have a word from the wise on

1. Where to source a service.
2. Software to upload sound/video.
3. I presume I get a url to distribute to users?
4. When our meeting is over, do I need to terminate?
5. Are they able to receive on phone/tablet?
6. Are the participants able to interact?

I haven't gotten too far with all that but jitsi-meet is a javascript thing which works in the browser and on smartphones. Mumble is also on the short list but is audio only.

Well, far from a Linux answer, but our company uses Teams, we used to use Skype.

Either case, it's sourced from there. There's also GotoMeeting, and Webex(?) there's some bunch of them available. Most of them have audio/video conferencing and if people desire a need to have a phone in number, either you host that yourself, or they can provide, ... for a fee.

Software to upload? Dropbox or other cloud services? If I understand the question properly?

Yes you get a URL.

"I'd" terminate when the meeting is done, but similar with most phones, the other party hangs up, the call/conference is disconnected.

They typically can use phone/tablet/desktop/notebook/etc. And as much of the capabilities as the device allows, you can use. Like if you have a camera you can use that, or not; if you have a desktop to share, you can do that, although that's more typical of a desktop/notebook versus tablet, but I've just never tried on a tablet/phone, nor would I want too.

Participants are able to interract both in audio and video, and also sharing desktops. While it's great to have video, if you know the other parties, have worked with, or met them, then video is sort of neither here not there if you're working on substantive content that shows better on a shared screen. But the conferencing apps I've used, split things up and show the primary monitor you wish to view, or allow you to also click and expand one person's camera view, if you really care. Otherwise it just shows the person's icon they selected, such as a personal photo of them that's good appearing, or some cartoon characters, or other scenes, all depending on personality, professionalism, etc.

Thanks Guys

Apparently, the decision has been made. Someone had an account with Zoom. I don't like it at first glance, we did a trial last night and it works on an iphone, so I'll have to go with it. It was short notice for me, I had my mobile (not much use with only one hand & two of us), and a RasPi driving a TV. The RasPi wasn't catered for. I've set up a pc today.

My question #2 on uploading s/w was simply that whoever was uploading may need different software. If a conferencing package was needed, it would be good to know. Many apps do webcam/builtin Microphone, but if something went beyond it, I'd have liked to know.

I'm marking this solved, not because I've got to the bottom of what's best, but because someone else has undertaken the headacheand my headache is restricted to making Zoom work.

EDIT: I'm not marking this solved, because this is general, and I can't. But I've kinda lost interest now. Anyhow Zoom is impossible to set up on the Pi with Raspbian, unless you get source somewhere

Don't they offer a web client for browser?

Yes. Zoom do an x86_64 firefox browser add-on and some package with an executable(x86_64). They do nothing for the RasPi, which of course is Arm. In their turn Debian don't even do a Firefox browser. They supply Chromium, I can get Palemoon, but Palemoon falls over anytime you ask much of the add-ons. The sound one is particularly awful. I like Palemoon, but I can't get sound from it on either the Raspi on the PC. It just rasps. Chromium isn't bad; It is functional. I mean to try mozilla.org for an arm browser. I would lose Palemoon, except Chromium refuses to load WhatsApp web, telling me to go off and get chrome:-/.

I'm really impressed with the Raspi, which I have purely to feed the tv that's been forced on me here like a white elephant. It has this AWFUL interface to the web. Netflix and youtube have their own terrible tv type apps. And Irish TV is sporadically great, but usually mediocre.

I mean to try some 'grunt power' test like a kernel compile or picture conversion on both the Arm and my puny PC, as I'd fancy the 4 core Arm cpu against my 2 core i3.

I am not happy about Zoom and have been able to avoid it so far (knock on wood) by suggesting lower-tech alternatives to windows/apple/smartphone users. Many of them just don't think about using IRC or email instead of taking everything from face-to-face straight to videoconferencing.

It might have been warmer and fuzzier to have a guitar lesson via jami or jitsi meet, but it was easier for my teacher to make a three short videos and answer my questions via text message for the same 45 minutes a face-to-face lesson would have taken. He is not technically interested enough to enjoy experimenting with different apps on his own time and I can't afford not to have a guitar lesson right now.

The guy needs the money very badly and isn't capable of absorbing unsolicited tech support this week. If your people are closer to you or farther along in adapting to the "new reality" of the pandemic, I think jitsi meet isn't asking very much of them, since it is a web interface just like the Zoom web interface that all Linux users are expected to use.

Unfortunately, these are the times we live in and the issue is not solved. There are a lot of problems with Zoom and a lot of pre-existing "public image" problems with Linux before the virus even became an issue in the US and Ireland.

I'm glad you found a fix that worked for now, business_kid, and no judgement or entitlement intended, but this was a good question that isn't going to have a one-size-fits-all answer and a thread that should probably get more attention over the next few days or weeks. I'll personally be listening more than talking anyway.

For anybody running into how to connect to the world problems:

If you have at least a quad core / 4 thread CPU with at least 4 gigabytes of RAM you can run just about any lightweight widespread / well supported distro, install virtualbox for free and install Windows 10 for free. If you assign 2 cores or threads and 2 gigabytes of RAM to the virtual machine windows will run just fine with a little bit of tweaking.

There's a whole ton of stuff included in 10 now that is future-proofing for virtual reality stuff coming down the pipe plus a lot of other services that you just don't need; especially for a limited use VM. About 10 minutes with Google and you can find a list of most the stuff that you can safely turn off and how to do it. When you know how to do it and what to look for just use a little common sense to figure out what else to turn off. Read the descriptions of the services. You obviously don't need something for 3D VR game emulation. Once you tighten up all of the unneeded services it actually runs really fast. Upgrading from one release to the next can be a pain in the neck sometimes. I suggested at a minimum you do a snapshot before you do a release upgrade. Personally I just keep a spare duplicate copy of the virtual hard drive on my real hard drive in case something goes KFB.

The new version of Windows 10 is completely up to date with drivers, security patches, antivirus and everything else. The only dif is you are locked out of some features on the free version like not being able to do any customization to the GUI interface and not being able to create an administrative profile separate from your user profile.

But who cares if all you're using it for is to fill the gaps in *nix compatibility.

I use mine for stuff like making my printer connection easier, anytime I have to work with a camera, anytime I have to do something with Skype, etc.

I don't consider myself that great at setting stuff up, but I'm doing networked scanning/printing in linux, what camera stuff I do is on linux, and I have relegated Skype to a tablet. I use it very little - it's a pain. WhatsApp is better, and encrypted. I do use wine and multilib slackware64 for the one 32bit M$ only app I need. If there's a free copy of windows 10 on the ether, I'd appreciate a link.

There is one precaution I take buying peripherals: Check linux compatibility. I stick to HP printers, for instance, because they use postscript and pay attention to linux support. I ask on ebay about linux support before buying, or research it. Some things are wilfully obstinate; the latest Realtek wifi chip (The rtl 8192 is in the kernel now, but wasn't recently enough). The savvy companies have guys on the LKML writing code for their components, which then becomes kernel code.

EDIT: I'm stuck on Zoom for 2 meetings a week. It's gone from 10 million users to 200 million in the last 2 weeks - success they could only dream of. They've suddenly dropped adding features to patch loopholes. People could guess Meeting IDs & jump in unwanted, so they're tightening up on server settings.Waiting rooms by default (your id & password only get you to a waiting room, & the host admits you.), refusing rejoining to any who leave/get kicked, etc. There's been a bit in the news about it. Some Jewish meeting was 'zoom-bombed' - guys got in and injected porn and anti-zionist stuff - very upsetting.

There's a separate zoom thread that I started here.

All copies of 10 are "free" now. The model they use now is that you get the occasional (and not horribly persistent) popup asking you to upgrade to the paid premium version and an onscreen watermark in the background if you don't. You're also locked into the default configuration of the appearance (menus, themes, background, etc). And you're locked out of advanced features like being able to enact group policies b/c you are locked out of creating an admin profile separate from your user profile. But you do have a superuser profile. So you can install software, etc.

It is perfectly usable for basic daily stuff like running a windows based browser plugin to log into a meeting. I've even seen product demos from windows vendors being done with copies that are not "activated".

I have an iso from way back with none of that, but it's half a day of updates:-/

Six of one and half a dozen of another I suppose.

DL a more recent ISO so you don't have to run so many updates. IIRC you get like 30 days before you have to activate and get the watermark and all that junk. But you still can't do things like a separate admin profile or change themes until you activate.

Thanks, but I think I'll suffer the delay if they haven't slowed this old one down to nothing. That's the way my old VM was, and I could just restore that. Even Vista was better. I don't really need windows at all actually. It's months between uses. But if a barn door is found open in it security wise (happens regularly enough in windows, it gets patched.

EDIT: There used to be cracked versions of everything available. Surely there's someone who has patched that?

I never use cracks. Only God knows what has been slipstreamed into them.

It's a faint watermark in the wallpaper.

As far as the rest goes: That's all a Home user could do with 7 or 8. To go beyond superuser you've had to have a Pro license since 7. But with 7 and 8 they stopped getting any updates after 90 days if you didn't pay. Now updates are free until EOL. If you want to unlock customized skins it costs you for a Home license. And a Pro license if you want granular admin functions. Why bother? It does the job of filling the last few gaps just fine as is.

Fair point on the cracks, and I don't even have a virus checker here for anything M$. As far as the updates go, I mightn't even install them. I updated the last one and all they did was slow it down. This is there for the evil day when linux proves congenitally incapable of running something. Months have gone by, and I've been starting Windoze about every three months to update it, which just makes it dozier. I'm thinking I'll leave the install until I need it. Slackware's 64/32bit install of wine seems the best out there. Their use of /lib64 & /usr/lib64 lets 32 bit stuff coexist undisturbed in /lib & /usr/lib. If small minds insist on using things like silverlight, I've been going around them.

As for your handle - ReformedTechie - are you an ex-techie too? I was in Electronic Hardware as a techie. That whole line of work is just about dead now.

I was deep into sec and maint for a long time. I started building back in the days of the 'zines when Trash 80s were hot stuff. I was a MS T1 Enterprise Tech. I got calls for everything from a keyboard replacement to "We just lost China".

I used to build custom compiled, hardened, compartmentalized *nix OS'es for *fun*!

Then I triple broke my neck in a 75mph rollover wreck ~4 years ago and my priorities changed. The docs wanted $250K to rebuild it out of rubber and steel. I told them to shove it, went into the gym, ate ~2.5-3K hours of pain over ~18+ months and put it back together myself.

Now I'd rather spend 20 hours a week training, lifting and playing Kung Fu than hardening a kernel.

There's been a revival of physical computing, at least the fun aspects of it, in recent years centered in Wales. See the back issues of The Magpi if you haven't seen them already about that:

https://magpi.raspberrypi.org/issues

Browse for parts or whole kits:

https://thepihut.com/

https://www.adafruit.com/

The Raspberry Pis are slightly more expensive than comparable boards because they reinvest so much money back into education, the main goal of their Foundation.

Thanks, but I can rarely force myself to read back issues of anything. By the time something's written, it's inclined to be out of date. Sad but true. My University degree course was out of date.

Isn't amazing how far degree programs lag the world; especially in light of what they charge!

It depends. That's what differentiates a good school from a rip-off. At least back a few decades, the top universities, used to be more than a few years ahead of *everyone* else in their best departments. That is their purpose. I'm not sure how many remain worldwide.

Even an otherwise crap school could do excellent teaching by keeping the lesson plans up to date. Unfortunately they don't look ahead more than one term at a time and won't pay to keep up. Instead they let vendors set the curriculums, lesson plans, and teaching methods. Thus you end up with classes teaching yesterday's technology today at tomorrow's prices.

My lot couldn't keep up to date. The lecturers couldn't teach stuff they didn't know themselves! They had 'retired' into lecturing because they had their phds. The cerebal cement was very much set.

I was in Electronic Hardware. Take my project, for example, on Opto Electronics. I did my research. For the pivotal 1st component, where the extremely small input was delivered, I used a High Electron Mobility Transistor (which was an up to date device). I had to explain that to lecturers who had never used one. But nobody would work with me on the project because I was running the pcb at 250Mhz. "Projects that run fast always run into trouble" was what I was told. Eventually it was taken on by a guy with no expertise in the field. "I took this on because I said to myself 'I'll Learn something here'" he said, "And I learned something all right." In fact he contributed 1%. The PCB I had designed gave no trouble, but every track route was carefully chosen, and every component carefully placed. I was used to draughting boards by hand - a skill that died in the 1980s. 250Mhz isn't much anyhow. There's Ghz running around every Motherboard.

I got an A for the design complexity and the HEMT, the skill on the PCB was unnoticed. I kept the College's embarrassing lack of facilities out of my final report. What was the point?

Just thinking: I started this thread about alternatives to zoom, hoping to hear about some linux server program people could log into. Now we (Myself included) have gone teetotally off the point, which I suppose is the general column. My University was probably the worst in the Western World. Even the IEEE jumped on the degree, stripped it of it's approval, and demanded they move it from a 5 year to a 4 year. So I did the 1st 2 years of a 5 year and came into year 3 to find out the last 3 years were compressed into two. They couldn't teach anything, just say it at us and move on to the next topic.