Video conference apts. or websites?

stellla

Hello,

Just our of curiosity, which is better for video conferences with more than 2 people? Skype for Linux doesn't have this feature, nor does Egika. Are there any apts that do and can be used with Ubuntu 11.10, wirhout any problems or tweaking? Basically, both the microphone and webcam work on my distribution, so I don't really think it is necessary to mess with them. Or would any of the many websites that provide video conferencing be better? These don't rely on any specific OS. If so, which one?

My 2 sons are in the UK and I'm in Greece. We all use Linux,and Skype.. but I can only talk with both of them, not see them. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Sincerely,

Goineasy9

The Linux.com moderators have used Google hangouts and/or Google Video chat in the past and it has worked great. I've seen posts in Google+ about European TV stations using the Hangout feature and I'm wondering if that may be your answer. I've yet to do a hangout across the ocean, so I'm not sure if it's available everywhere, but, it may be worth looking into.

stellla

Thanks, I'll give it a try. That it also works with Android is good, because my youngest son can use it on his iphone.

marc

I'm yet to try Google+ hangouts. Unfortunately when the guys here at linux.com tried it I couldn't assist due to time differences!

Estelle, keep us posted on how it worked!

Regards

stellla

Hi,
I have installed it on my laptop- no problem. So it is available here in Greece. I hope to be able to use it when doing an online language exchange with someone in Germany in a couple of weeks. Will let everybody know how it turns out. Thanks again for your help.

ben

Just a quick note about G+ Hangouts, if you want to use a Linux system you need to install it only on a Debian or Fedora based distribution.
I've tried it to chat with an Ubuntu laptop and it works fine, no chanches with Gentoo, Slack, Arch, ... there's just a minimal support to Linux for it, I've seen messages about tests on porting these RPMs on other distros but it seems to be too early to use them without troubles

mfillpot

A slight correction, slackware has ported the debian package to work perfectly and chances are that other distro may have done the same.