WebEx on 64-bit Ubuntu 13.10

Periodically, I use WebEx with work. It seems like it is just often enough to remind me that I didn’t make sure it was working since my last install.

Well, thanks to Russ Lowenthal, I found an easy fix to get it working.

Ask Ubuntu: How to I make Cisco WebEx work with 13.10 64bit?

Existing directory

Well first, he has you look for missing libraries in the config directory. The problem is, I had two of them already.

$ ls $HOME/.webex 
1124  1424  lastshareindex.bak

I just deleted the directory to start from scratch.

rm -r .webex/

I started a new WebEx from my browser. I just logged into the meeting and ended it. After that, I had just one directory there:

$ ls $HOME/.webex 
1424

As a side note, the Meeting Center opens at this point. I just can’t share my desktop or view someone else’s.

Finding Missing Libraries

Next, I ran this command to identify the missing libraries.

ldd $HOME/.webex/1424/*.so >>check.txt

I could have opened the check.txt with gedit or something like that. It was easier to use grep to find all of the “not found” lines:

$ grep "not found" check.txt 
	libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0 => not found
	libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0 => not found
	libXmu.so.6 => not found
	libXtst.so.6 => not found
	libjawt.so => not found
	libjawt.so => not found
	libXmu.so.6 => not found
	libpangoxft-1.0.so.0 => not found
	libXft.so.2 => not found
	libpangoft2-1.0.so.0 => not found
	libpangox-1.0.so.0 => not found

Then, I installed the apt-file program.

sudo apt-get install apt-file
apt-file update

Finally, I used it to search each of the libraries that were not found.

$ apt-file search libXmu.so.6
libxmu6: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXmu.so.6
libxmu6: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXmu.so.6.2.0
libxmu6-dbg: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXmu.so.6.2.0

Once I knew the libraries, I could use that to install them. Not each of these actually installed packages because some were dependencies.

sudo apt-get install -y libgtk2.0-0:i386
sudo apt-get install -y libxmu6:i386
sudo apt-get install -y libgcj14-awt:i386
sudo apt-get install -y libpangoxft-1.0-0:i386
sudo apt-get install -y libxft2:i386
sudo apt-get install -y libpangoft2-1.0-0:i386
sudo apt-get install -y libpangox-1.0-0:i386

I didn’t even have to reboot or even restart my browser. The next meeting worked fine and showed me the shared desktop.

7 thoughts on “WebEx on 64-bit Ubuntu 13.10

  1. Came across the same issue today and these instructions worked well.

    I was on ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS version and the only change was that I was unable to install libgcj14-awt:i386 or the 12.04 equivalent libgcj12-awt:i386

    I was able to get around this by installing

    sudo apt-get install -y openjdk-7-jre-headless:i386

    and all worked perfectly.

    I also installed ia32-libs but I’m not sure if that was required.

    sudo apt-get install -y ia32-libs

  2. Forgive the ignorance, relative newbie here.

    I have one question – why do you put the :i386 in the command line? What does that do, and if you are 64 bit, would you not use whatever value for a 64-bit system?

    1. @chuck, No problem — forgive the late reply.

      The :i386 forces it to load the 32-bit package. The problem is that even though my system is 64-bit, the software is 32-bit and will only work with 32-bit libraries.

      So, basically, the :i386 tells it to load the 32-bit version even though I have a 64-bit OS.

      1. @digital – your instructions and this process is very informative, I’m learning alot from this, many thanks! I noticed that for the java stuff (libgcj14-awt) on my system, there were serveral packages that contained this:
        gcc-snapshot: /usr/lib/gcc-snapshot/lib/gcj-4.9.0-15/libjawt.so
        gcc-snapshot: /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-gcj-4.9-snap-amd64/jre/lib/amd64/libjawt.so
        gcj-4.8-jre: /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-gcj-4.8-amd64/jre/lib/amd64/libjawt.so
        libgcj14-awt: /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-gcj-4.8-amd64/lib/libjawt.so
        libgcj14-awt: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gcj-4.8-14/libjawt.so
        libgcj14-dbg: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gcj-4.8-14/libjawt.so
        openjdk-6-dbg: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/jre/lib/amd64/libjawt.so
        openjdk-6-jre-headless: /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/jre/lib/amd64/libjawt.so
        openjdk-7-dbg: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/jre/lib/amd64/libjawt.so
        openjdk-7-jre-headless: /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/jre/lib/amd64/libjawt.so

        Does it matter which one I install for this? I think there are others too, but just wanted to know

        Thanks again!

  3. hi chuck
    I also have 64 bit ubuntu 14.04. and my problem while executing webex is I get this message.

    the audio device is unaccessable now.

    thus, no sound.

    to resolve this
    I followed the above steps.
    after installing some packages I also eneded with
    this line in check.txt (like chuck I guess):

    libjawt.so => not found

    after entering this:

    apt-file search libjawt.so

    I get the same list as chuck got above. observing that
    libgcj14-awt package has this file
    I tried to install the 32 version of libgcj14-awt using:

    sudo apt-get install -y libgcj14-awt:i386

    but I get the reply:

    libgcj14-awt:i386 is already the newest version

    but still after removing .webex directory and executing once more webex application I get this line again in check.txt:

    libjawt.so => not found

    so I thought maybe to install gcj-4.8-jre:i386 that also has libjawt.so using:

    sudo apt-get install -y gcj-4.8-jre:i386

    but I get this reply:

    gcj-4.8-jre:i386 : Depends: gcj-4.8-jre-headless:i386 (= 4.8.4-2ubuntu1~14.04.1) but it is not going to be installed
    E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

    so what should I do next to execute webex

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