# [closed] Zoom problem: sh: pactl: command not found

## Tony0945

I've installed it twice, once with no flags and the second time with bundled-lib-jpeg. Same error.

If pulseaudio is required, it should be a hard dependency, not a useflag.

This package is fast becoming a required application. I don't like the security warnings. Perhaps I should run it under Windows in a VM. banning that machine from intranet access?Last edited by Tony0945 on Fri Nov 20, 2020 11:51 am; edited 1 time in total

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## Banana

 *Tony0945 wrote:*   

> banning that machine from intranet access?

 

but how to you use zoom then?

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## Tony0945

Banana,  intranet, not internet. The Zooming machine has no reason to interact with the other machines, real or virtual.

I'd have to put these in all the other machines' firewall, no access from 192.168.0.155, for example. Or shutdown every other machine.

Right now Zoom doesn't work at all because it can't find pulseaudio (not installed(.

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## toralf

 *Tony0945 wrote:*   

> I've installed it twice, once with no flags and the second time with bundled-lib-jpeg. Same error.
> 
> If pulseaudio is required, it should be a hard dependency, not a useflag.

 How do "JPEG" and "pulseaudio" play here together?

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## Tony0945

Beats me, toralf. I have -pulseaudio in make.conf, portage supposedly built it without pulse audio and when I google for the error, I find Ubuntu instructions to install pulseaudio.

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## steve_v

 *Tony0945 wrote:*   

> If pulseaudio is required, it should be a hard dependency, not a useflag.

 

The ebuild invokes a quick and dirty binary hack to hide the pulse libs if USE !pulseaudio (because unfixed zoom bug, of course), but makes no mention of removing calls to pactl.

Perhaps this was enough at some point to get it working. As zoom now appears to be broken in absence of pulseaudio (among others), perhaps one should file an upstream bug report?

If it were up to me I'd consider the existing hackery out of scope for an ebuild already, and the several open and intractable bugs grounds to simply mask the package until upstream fixes the binary or releases source.

It's not up to me though, and the package appears to have a maintainer, so I guess suggesting an rdepend on pulseaudio is in order.

 *Tony0945 wrote:*   

> This package is fast becoming a required application.

 This package is a proprietary, non-freedom-respecting binary black-box, and as such there's no way for Gentoo to fix it. It's also of very dubious security and quite likely spyware to boot.

There are plenty of FOSS video calling alternatives, I suggest Jitsi.

If you must use it, then yeah, I'd say run it in a VM. I sure as hell wouldn't install it natively on my machine, even if it did work properly.

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## Banana

 *Tony0945 wrote:*   

> Banana,  intranet, not internet. The Zooming machine has no reason to interact with the other machines, real or virtual.
> 
> I'd have to put these in all the other machines' firewall, no access from 192.168.0.155, for example. Or shutdown every other machine.
> 
> Right now Zoom doesn't work at all because it can't find pulseaudio (not installed(.

 

I see now. The little difference between those two words, slipped while I read them.

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## Tony0945

 *steve_v wrote:*   

> This package is a proprietary, non-freedom-respecting binary black-box, and as such there's no way for Gentoo to fix it. It's also of very dubious security and quite likely spyware to boot.
> 
> There are plenty of FOSS video calling alternatives, I suggest Jitsi.
> 
> If you must use it, then yeah, I'd say run it in a VM. I sure as hell wouldn't install it natively on my machine, even if it did work properly.

 

But the probate court wants my wife to appear via ZOOM. The schools require ZOOM. My garden club has stopped meeting and require ZOOM. 

So yeah, another Microsoft license and another VM, because the media have popularized proprietary software.  And sure it works, on Ubuntu.

Thanks, steve_v

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## Anon-E-moose

Then make a ubuntu vm or chroot, that'll isolate it and should let it work properly.

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## Etal

I just launch it from Firefox. If you click "download now" an option to join from browser fades in: https://ibb.co/tCHSMVB

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## Banana

maybe I simplify it too mutch, but why isn't there a sowftware which acts like man in the middle and lets everybody connect regardles of used software?

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## steve_v

 *Banana wrote:*   

> why isn't there a sowftware which acts like man in the middle and lets everybody connect regardles of used software?

 Because commercial interests, like zoom, have no interest in co-operating. Instead, everyone uses their own secret-sauce standards to scrabble for market-share.

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## Dominique_71

Maybe your sound card is busy. With the jack ALSA plugin as default ALSA card and jackd running, I get the same pactl error and no sound. If I stop jack, starting zoom gave me another message: "sh: pacmd : command not found". After setting the sound card into zoom's Audio preferences to the real sound card, the sound is working.

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