tron/OpenBSD: Zoom doesn't work
OpenBSD on tron
has microphone, audio and video set up properly (chmod g+r+w /dev/video*
and sysctl kern.{audio,video}.record=1
).
This all works, even within web browsers (e.g. Jitsi works fine in both Firefox and Iridium/Chromium).
- Some instances (
uninett.zoom.us
) show that the camera and microphone work in the Join Meeting (uninett.zoom.us/wc/join/...
) page, but after clicking Join, it is redirected to the launch page (uninett.zoom.us/j/...
) and there it demands that you download the Zoom client. - Other instances (
uib.zoom.us
) tell you that «your browser doesn't support using computer's Audio device, please upgrade your browser to the latest version.» Both of these statements are false: clearly the audio device works with the browser (see above), and I'm running the latest version of the web browser (running latest OpenBSD snapshot with the most recent packages).
These are the results with Chromium and Iridium. In Firefox I got told «Zoom is not supported on your operating system» when I try the room on the Uninett instance. This sort of explains that one gets redirected to the launch page when trying to directly wc/join/ the room. With the room on the UiB instance, I don't get this redirect and it doesn't tell me this in Firefox. However, there the camera doesn't work properly: it gives a black screen. This is clearly bad handling by Zoom, because it works fine with Jitsi.
Zoom has deteriorated further to not being usable anymore on OpenBSD. No matter how reliable (predictable and stable) your own system is, this is not something you can control. This is what you get with proprietary services.