WebEx working again in Ubuntu 9.10-64bit!

It seems like this is the pattern with me and WebEx.  I tinker to get it working, I upgrade, it breaks, repeat.  Well, my most recent fling through this cycle started with a broken hard drive.  Actually, several things started it.  First, I originally thought my laptop had a 32-bit processor.  When I found out the new version of PeopleSoft requires a 64-bit OS, I did some research and found that it was actually a 64-bit processor.  Then, when I sent the laptop off to have the hard drive replaced, I figured that was the time to put 64-bit Ubuntu on it.

So, that is how it started, and then, I couldn’t get WebEx to work.  I got Eclipse to work on 64-bit Java, Java worked in the browser, and everything was fine.  I didn’t want to try to pull it all out and reinstall the 32-bit Java just to get WebEx working.  So, I decided to attempt to try to install the 64-bit and 32-bit versions side by side.  With some help, I got it to work:

Ubuntu Forums: 32-bit and 64-bit Firefox at the same time

The first step was installing Java.  It was pretty simple and straight forward.  I downloaded it from Sun’s website.  Essentially, you just extract it and set your environment variables to use it.  The path I chose was $HOME/bin/java.

Next, I found that you cannot use the 32-bit version of Java with the 64-bit version of Firefox.  Firefox throws out all of the 32-bit plugins with this message: “wrong ELF class”.    So, I installed Firefox by downloading it from Firefox’s website.  I extracted it to $HOME/bin/java/firefox.

The next key was linking the Java plugin in the path where Firefox would see it.  First, I linked the plugin into plugins directory:

ln -s $JAVA_HOME/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so libnpgp2.so

Once in the Firefox plugins directory, you have to make sure Firefox knows where the plugins directory is with the MOZ_PLUGIN_PATH variable.

So, to recap, I have:

  • Java installed at $HOME/bin/java
  • Firefox installed at $HOME/bin/java/firefox
  • Java pluing installed at $HOME/bin/java/firefox/plugins from $HOME/bin/java/jdk…/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so

Then, I created an environment script that sets all of the paths and variables to make it work:

#!/bin/sh
export PATH=~/bin/java/firefox:~/bin/java/jdk1.6.0_18/jre/bin/:~/bin/java/jdk1.6.0_18/bin/:$PATH
export JAVA_HOME=~/bin/java/jdk1.6.0_18/jre
export MOZ_PLUGIN_PATH=~/bin/java/firefox/plugins

Finally, I created a script to launch firefox:

#!/bin/bash

cd ~/bin/java
. ./env.sh
firefox --no-remote -P WebEx

And, it worked!

13 thoughts on “WebEx working again in Ubuntu 9.10-64bit!

  1. I tried this approach and WebEx didn’t work. It still tells that my stsem is not supported.

    I tried this approach, but I also tried running it directly from a 32 bit Ubuntu (have another laptop that does not support 64 bit). In either case webex tells me – Meeting center is not available for your computer’s operating system…

    I am not sure what else I can do. Any help would be appreciated.

  2. Just a thought: do you have Ubuntu-Restricted-Extras and libstdc++5 installed?

    Also, check the About dialog to make sure the Firefox version is 32-bit.

    — Just some thoughts to try.

  3. Hey. I have URE, I also installed libstdc++5. I am not sure what About would say. I have 2 seperate firefox browsers. I know for a fact one is 64 bit and I am not sure about the other. I downloaded it and installed it as you specify above from the firefox site. It does not say in the About if it is 32 or 64. Java has 32 bit deployment so I know it is 32 bit. But clearly I am not sure about firefox.

  4. I had an issue at first getting my 32-bit Firefox to run at first when I had the 64bit one open. I forget what I was doing wrong, but it was opening the 64-bit when I thought I was opening the 32-bit. At the bottom of the About dialog you can tell — the 32bit will say i686.

    Here is my 64-bit:
    Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.8) Gecko/20100214 Ubuntu/9.10 (karmic) Firefox/3.5.8

    Here is my 32-bit:
    Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686 (x86_64); en-US; rv:1.9.2) Gecko/20100115 Firefox/3.6

    Make sure you have 32-bit Firefox working and that you have Java support in it. That would be my first step. Hope that helps — I know it is not much.

  5. Here is my 64 bit:
    Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.2) Gecko/20100402 Ubuntu/9.10 (karmic) Firefox/3.6.2 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

    Here is the other FF:
    Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686 (x86_64); en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3

    Comparing to your than we are running the same versions. I checked java in the plugins and it is there. I am not sure what am I doing wrong. Can you start a meeting in webex, or just join a meeting?

  6. This is the message that I get when I try to start a meeting:

    Meeting Center is not available for your computer’s operating system. For information about system requirements, please refer to the FAQ support.

  7. I am not sure why it is not working. I wonder if your WebEx site is using an older version of their Meeting Center or something like that. I am not sure why it works on the Test Meeting but not when you try to start a meeting.

    Sorry, I am not sure help here.

  8. How to get webex with webex voip working natively on 64 bit ubuntu. Here is how I did it in three easy steps.

    1. Download swiftfox at http://getswiftfox.com/download.htm.

    * Choose Deb Files
    * Choose Intel Prescott
    * Let Ubuntu package manager install it.

    SwiftFox is FireFox optomized for a particular processor. You can verify your processor by doing a cat of /proc/cpuinfo.

    2. Go to http://www.java.com and download the 32 bit version of java. Be sure it is 32 bit and not 64 bit. I chose the self extracting file and put it in /tmp.

    * chmod it to 777 and execute it by doing a sudo sh ./jre-6u21-linux-i586.bin
    * It will self extract in /tmp a directory called jre1.6.0_21 – or whatever the latest version of Java you downloaded.
    * I then moved the directory jre1.6.0_21 to $HOME

    3. I then created these three symbolic links in /usr/lib/swiftfox/plugins. You may need to remove the ones that are there first as swiftfox imports the firefox settings and links, etc.

    lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 64 2010-09-18 08:50 libjavaplugin_oji.so -> $HOME/jre1.6.0_21/plugin/i386/ns7-gcc29/libjavaplugin_oji.so
    lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 42 2010-09-18 08:59 libjavaplugin.so -> $HOME/jre1.6.0_21/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so
    lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 42 2010-09-18 08:56 libnpjp2.so -> $HOME/jre1.6.0_21/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so

    And Viola! It works like a champ and very fast. Not sure if the libjavaplugin.so is needed but created it anyway.

    You can also run the traditional 64 bit firefox now and the optomized swiftfox for webex meetings without either one interfering with the other and all of webex now works finally! No more windoze VM garbage need just to conference. Using swiftfox provides a clear distinction versus installing 32 bit firefox and 64 bit firefox.

    Ahhh freedom is such a sweet feeling!

    =Steve

Leave a Reply to Steve P Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *