Google Brings Voice And Video Chat to Linux
By on August 29th, 2010

After a long, long time – Google finally has introduced Voice & Video chat for Linux. Now while trying to start a Voice or Video chat, instead of showing “This system is not supported” – you get redirected to Google’s Chat download page.

Clicking on the “Install button” will  prompt you to download the Debian package file.

Google Video Chat package download

Once saved, just double click on the file to launch the package manager, and click  on install to Install the plugin.

Google Talk Video Chat Plugin

Once installed, just restart your browser and you’re all set to start video chatting in Linux!

The bad news that currently, only debs are packaged, which means RPM based distro users will have to wait a little bit longer.

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Author: Sathya Bhat Google Profile for Sathya Bhat
Sathyajith aka "Sathya" or "cpg" loves working on computers, and actively participates in many online communities. Sathya is a Community Moderator on Super User, a collaboratively maintained Q&A site which is part of the Stack Exchange network. Sathya also contributes to and is a Super Moderator at Chip India Forums. While not writing SQL queries or coding in PL/SQL, Sathya is also a gamer, a Linux enthusiast, and maintains a blog on Linux & OpenSource. You can reach Sathya on twitter.

Sathya Bhat has written and can be contacted at sathya@techie-buzz.com.

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  • Bastpt

    Hi Thanks for this article. I have followed your step-by-step instruction. I restarted my mozilla firefox 3.6.8 after installed the package. I went to ‘gmail’ page where in chat settings I couln’d find any options for voice/video chat. I am still getting this message “unfortunatly voice/video chat not available for your OS” in the Chat settings. Pls reply.
    I am running on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid, Moziall Firefox 3.6.8.
    Thanks.

    • http://sathyabh.at Sathya Bhat

      @Baspt: Try couple of things:
      1. Reinstall the package again
      2. Ensure you have flash installed
      3. Ensure you aren’t using FlashBlock or any such extension.

      Are you using 64-bit edition of Ubuntu ?

      • bastpt

        hi Sathya, Thanks for quick reply.
        Strange, but it just worked. I already installed flash plugin. To make sure I went to check the player version and it showed 10.1. After that i opened gmail, this time i got the voice and video chats option.
        Thanks 4r ur suggestion.
        But,one thing failed in verify settings: 1) webcam playing-no issue.
        2)microphone -not working. Couldn’t see mic meter when i speak.
        3)speakers -no issue working fine.
        Do u have any idea why mic.ph not detected.

        Note:ubuntu 10.04 32bit/Linux 2.6.32-24 generic on i686

        • http://sathyabh.at Sathya Bhat

          @bastpt Glad to know you got the camera working. For speakers & mic – (this might sound stupid) ensure the volume levels are high. Run alsamixer from the Terminal and increase the levels

 
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