Running Webex on Ubuntu
Webex running on Ubuntu and other non-Windows platforms is literally a click away, in this case the CMR (Collaboration Meeting Room).
Webex is a fact of life for many people and for many Linux (BSD and other non-Windows) users, it has been a thorn in the side with people going so far as to set up virtual machines just to run Cisco’s collaboration software. While Webex is written in Java, it isn’t so simple to get running everywhere and apparently not all features are available for non-Windows users.
Most likely you are running up against the following message after logging into *.webex.com
Your browser,browser version, or operating system is currently unsupported
This requires the intervention of whoever is administrating the *.webex.com account and they can modify it in the following way.
Using Qemu and Chroot to replace your cross-compile toolchain
Awhile back I wrote about how you can set up a cross-compile toolchain for compiling on x86_64 with the Raspberry Pi as a target. There is another, perhaps easier way to do the same thing by using Qemu 2.0 as your backend.
By installing and enabling Qemu support, you can run code compiled for another architecture (that is supported by Qemu) on your native machine. You can then create a Chroot environment, perhaps similar to what you have on your Raspberry Pi, and run it as if it was natively.
Development on the Raspberry Pi
Now that I’m a proud owner of a Raspberry Pi, I’ve being really stressing the little guy. There is only but so much a ARMv6 processor, on an microSD with only 512MiB of ram can do, which means that compiling on such a machine is going to take a really long time.
Take for example OpenMW, currently it takes about 4 minutes on a quad-core i7 to compile. You’re in for a treat on the Pi, it will take you at least a day, two days if you realize that half-way through the OOM Killer came through and killed your cc process. This is about the time you start wondering about various ways to improve the situation, such as a larger swap file or using zram.
At this point, I was wondering about other ways compiling binaries and packages for the Pi. There was cross-compiling, but then I would have to set up a full toolchain and recompile all the packages from scratch. That will have to be for another post though as it is another world. Another option is to try virtualizing the Pi and apparently QEMU gets us pretty darn close.
Debian Package Maintenance
I’ve been there before with Gentoo, as a developer, but times and situations have changed. Over the years I’ve been deeply involved with Ubuntu for my work and at its heart, Debian. I’ve become a Debian Developer to help get closer to the development process, package management and maintenance to do my share of the heavy lifting.
The first thing I did was sign up at Alioth, a software ‘forge’ used by Debian for collaboration. Create a ‘New Account’ and just be aware that whatever login name you use, it will be appended with ‘-guest’. This will go away once you’ve officially joined Debian. At this point, it is also a good idea join a Debian mailing list and/or join IRC at irc.debian.org and have a nice chat with the folks in #Debian or their various sub-channels where you would like to help. It is important to have a sponsor/mentor that can help you out if you a problem. You will need them when getting accepted into the Debian community in order to start working.
Build environments using chroot
The need was simple enough: make deb packages from source for multiple architectures on the same system. This needed to be done without the overhead of a virtual machine and without using something like launchpad.
I’ve used chroot in the past and it seemed like a perfect fit for the problem. The idea is to have at least two chroot-able directories with the bare essentials from Ubuntu Natty (10.04) to compile and build deb packages.
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