As per Cisco’s WebEx System Requirements specification, WebEx is only supported in x86 for Linux, and for Ubuntu specifically in 12.x and 14.x with Gnome.
However, most modern machines use the x64 architecture, so this does create a problem. I had some fun sorting out this one ( I need it for work, so it’s pretty important I guess 🙂 ). The steps to resolve are fairly well documented, and in summary are as follows:
- WebEx requires Java. The WebEx system requirements guide says Java 6, but it works just fine (eventually!) in Java 8.
- Regarding browsers, Chrome just doesn’t work – walk away. Need Firefox here!
- Java may require certain security exceptions in certain cases to get this working
- Even after initiating a Webex, in-meeting features such as audio, desktop share etc. are not going to work. At the time of meeting initiation, WebEx will prompt the user to accept the download of a number of shared libraries (.so files) to the user’s /home directory, that are stored under /home/myuser/.webex/. These will contain package dependencies that will prevent most features from working, and should be addressed using this process.
There is however still a caveat listed here that needs to be taken into consideration. It’s important to install the correct icedtea plugin to remove any conflicts:
sudo apt-get -y remove icedtea-7-plugin:i386 icedtea-netx:i386 sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jre:i386 libxmu6:i386 icedtea-7-plugin firefox sudo update-alternatives --auto mozilla-javaplugin.so
It definitely doesn’t look too pretty in Ubuntu, but hey, for my purposes (support) I’m happy it’s working!
