Videoconferencing with GnomeMeeting

GnomeMeeting is an Internet videoconferencing application that provides two-way voice and pictures over the Internet by using the H.323 protocol for IP telephony (also known as Voice over IP [VoIP]). It is an application similar to Microsoft NetMeeting and is provided with Fedora Core as the default videoconferencing client.

Before you can take full advantage of the phone and videoconferencing capabilities of GnomeMeeting, you must configure a full-duplex capable sound card and video device (see Chapter 10, "Multimedia Applications") as well as a camera.

GnomeMeeting is found in the Internet menu as Videoconferencing; you click on the icon to launch it. When you start the GnomeMeeting application for the first time, a configuration wizard (called a "druid") runs and you are greeted by the first of four configuration screens. You simply enter your name, email address, and location and select your connection type. The settings for your audio and video devices are automatically detected; you can view them by selecting the Preferences item from the Edit menu.

Figure 8.22 shows GnomeMeeting in action, looking at a list of users listed with the server who are currently online.

Figure 8.22. GnomeMeeting is surprisingly simple to use. A video source is not necessary; a static picture can be used as well.

When you have GnomeMeeting running, you must register (from within GnomeMeeting) with the server at http://ils.seconix.com/ to enable conferencing; GnomeMeeting does this automatically for you if you have told it to do so during the initial configuration. GnomeMeeting is capable of communicating with Microsoft NetMeeting; you should ask NetMeeting users to register at http://ils.seconix.com/ so that you can see them because NetMeeting can see only other NetMeeting users.

You can find an informative FAQ at the GnomeMeeting home page at http://www.gnomemeeting.org/ that you should read in full before using GnomeMeeting. Also, an excellent article about VoIP is at http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/430/.

NOTE

If you frequently use VoIP applications such as GnomeMeeting, you will tire of repetitively typing in long IP addresses to make connections. To avoid this hassle, you can use a "gatekeeper" similar in purpose to a DNS server to translate names into IP addresses. OpenH323 Gatekeeper is one such popular gatekeeper application. It is not provided with Fedora, but you can obtain it from http://www.gnugk.org/.

Relevant Fedora Commands

You will use the following commands to manage electronic mail in Fedora Core Linux:

balsa A GNOME mail user agent for X.

biff A console-based mail notification utility.

evolution A comprehensive and capable Ximian GNOME mail PIM for X.

thunderbird A lightweight but powerful email application from Mozilla.

kmail A graphical mail user client for KDE and X

korn A biff applet for KDE and X.

mail A console-based mail user agent.

mutt A console-based mail user agent.