[Freedombox-discuss] Any FreedomBox app that can do video conferencing, beside matrix?

[Jonas Smedegaard]

Quoting A. F. Cano (2022-01-15 05:01:04)
> On Fri, Jan 14, 2022 at 11:37:13PM +0100, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> > Quoting A. F. Cano (2022-01-14 23:18:26)
> > > I had been using matrix-synapse with the Element-desktop client 
> > > for quite a while and I really depend on it.
> > 
> > Element-desktop is essentially element-web copied into your system 
> > and presented using a fork of the Chromium web browser called 
> > Electron.
> > 
> > An alternative is therefore to simply use your favorite web browser 
> > and Element-web, here: https://app.element.io/
> 
> Ok, I tried this.  The first thing I noticed is that it goes through
> app.element.io even after I tell to go to my private server.
[...]
> Mmm... Ok.  Still, I wonder if the problems I'm encoutering are both 
> in Element-desktop and element-web, at least on some brosers ie: 
> konqueror, or are they triggered by the server?  It shouldn't be 
> necessary to go to vector.im, riot.im, matrix.org and element.io to 
> contact my local FreedomBox.

Yes, when you use a web-app to connect to your service, then your 
browser needs to connect to that web-app to reach your service.

Unfortunately I am unaware of *any* Matrix client which is both a) not a 
web-app, and b) supports videoconferencing features, and c) is packaged 
for Debian.

...and as you know, "packaged for Debian" is a prerequisite for being 
able to include or support with FreedomBox.

You might have luck using the Jabber service in FreedomBox with clients 
that support the jingle extension - but I suspect that to be quite 
technical and likely involves adding/recompiling some components - i.e. 
not readily available in FreedomBox after all.

An alternative in Debian but not FreedomBox is to use the package jami.  
Both parties then need to install and use Jami.

An alternative in Debian and possible to add to FreedomBox is janus, but 
that requires more work (little bit for same interface as author's live 
demo at https://janus.conf.meetecho.com/videoroomtest.html - more work 
mainly on web-design for a more polished experience).  I maintain janus 
in Debian and would love help improving its off-the-shelf usability.

Other than the above, the only other alternative I can think of which is 
in Debian is to run an asterisk server (which is not in FreedomBox) 
configured with SIP accounts and connect to that using SIP clients.  One 
benefit of such setup (which can be combined with Janus, btw!) is that 
it can use lightweight clients: Matrix requires the client to be a web 
browser - one very lightweight SIP client in Debian is baresip requiring 
about 2MB disk space and not sure how much memory while running but less 
than a 10th of not a 100th of the memory gobbled up by a modern web 
browser.

That was not exactly what you asked for, but hope it was of some use 
regardless.


 - Jonas

-- 
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

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