Ubuntu – How to use Cisco WebEx in 64-bit Ubuntu

I just posted an answer to this question over at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=11757928

The WebEx applet uses a proprietary native module to access the sound software. It is a 32-bit .so, so it cannot be loaded by a 64-bit JVM. The usual solution seems to be to run a 32-bit browser any time you are using WebEx. As an alternative, I have patched the nspluginwrapper utility so that you can run a 32-bit Java plugin from a 64-bit browser (I've tested with Firefox, it should also work with Chrome).

Download the latest sources for nspluginwrapper from http://nspluginwrapper.org/download/

Expand the file (tar -xvzf) in a convenient location

Apply the following patch to the file npw-viewer.c:

--- npw-viewer.c    2011-06-30 23:18:57.000000000 -0400
+++ nspluginwrapper-1.4.4/src/npw-viewer.c    2012-03-11 14:09:35.104158681 -0400
@@ -5128,6 +5128,17 @@
     }
     handles[n_handles++] = handle;
     dlerror();
+#else
+    /* Install libstdc++ for java */
+    const char libstcpp[] = "libstdc++.so.6";
+    D(bug("  trying to open standard C++ runtime '%s'\n", libstcpp ));
+    if ((handle = dlopen(libstcpp, RTLD_LAZY|RTLD_GLOBAL)) == NULL) {
+      npw_printf("ERROR: %s\n", dlerror());
+      return 1;
+    }
+    handles[n_handles++] = handle;
+    dlerror();
+
 #endif
     D(bug("  %s\n", plugin_path));
     if ((handle = dlopen(plugin_path, RTLD_LAZY)) == NULL) {

You may need to get some additional libraries to make things work. In particular, I installed:

sudo apt-get install libcurl4-nss-dev libxt-dev libgtk2.0-dev g++-multilib

YMMV.

After getting the dependencies, its:

./configure
make
sudo make install

Then you will need a 32-bit jre. This can be downloaded from Oracle's website and installed.

Finally, locate the file libnpjp2.so in the lib directory of the 32-bit Java installation. I found it in /usr/lib/jvm/ia32-java-6-sun/jre/lib/i386/.

Execute

sudo nspluginwrapper -i /usr/lib/jvm/ia32-java-6-sun/jre/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so

(Or wherever your Java was installed.)

Then (re) start Firefox. Type "aboutlugins" in the address bar. You should see your newly installed 32-bit Java plugin.

Try joining a WebEx meeting with sound

Took a bunch of experimentation, but this DEFINITELY works for Webex audio and was pretty straight forward.

http://blog.romera.org/2012/03/09/make-webex-work-in-ubuntu-11-10-64-bit/

Nice thing about it is that you preserve everything in Firefox as is... Not sure if video works, but I will confirm that once I play a bit more.