I had some issues installing and using my Google Hangouts (which is a horrible product in the enterprise*) on Debian 7+ Testing. Getting the plugin to install was not working due to the plugin trying to install to two locations, which (on my system) were links to each other:
/usr/lib/firefox/plugins
/usr/lib/mozilla/
Removing the linked directories, recreating the dir as a real one, and linking the plugins inside was the solution there. Install worked!
Then, Firefox, Iceweasel, Chromium, and Chrome all couldn't use the video camera. Kopete was able to see and use this camera, so it was an issue with how the plugin was trying to access the hardware.
I came across this thread which solved my issue on my 32bit system, although this thread discusses 64bit Debian the resolution still worked:
http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/hangouts/vYsaeEnXJXs
The solution was to remove a Udev library and reinstall the Google Talk plugin:
# aptitude search libudev
p libudev-dev - libudev development files
i A libudev0 - libudev shared library
i A libudev1 - libudev shared library
# sudo aptitude remove libudev0
# sudo aptitude reinstall google-talkplugin
Why, you ask, is Hangouts such a bad idea for businesses?
/usr/lib/firefox/plugins
/usr/lib/mozilla/
Removing the linked directories, recreating the dir as a real one, and linking the plugins inside was the solution there. Install worked!
Then, Firefox, Iceweasel, Chromium, and Chrome all couldn't use the video camera. Kopete was able to see and use this camera, so it was an issue with how the plugin was trying to access the hardware.
I came across this thread which solved my issue on my 32bit system, although this thread discusses 64bit Debian the resolution still worked:
http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/hangouts/vYsaeEnXJXs
The solution was to remove a Udev library and reinstall the Google Talk plugin:
# aptitude search libudev
p libudev-dev - libudev development files
i A libudev0 - libudev shared library
i A libudev1 - libudev shared library
# sudo aptitude remove libudev0
# sudo aptitude reinstall google-talkplugin
Why, you ask, is Hangouts such a bad idea for businesses?
- Hangouts forces you to work in a browser, rather than using a dedicated application (Kopete, Pidgen, etc).
- It has no options for Busy, Away, etc.
- It's difficult to sign out from on various devices.
- It loses messages that may have appeared on one device but you missed them, and they're not popping up as new on the second device. This has horrible implications in the business world.
- Hangouts is a closed protocol and cannot be used with non-Hangouts people. Google Talk used the open, compatible XMPP (Jabber) protocol which allowed people from multiple services to communicate. No longer, with Hangouts you must be tied to a Google account.