For TeamViewer installation, is it normally done by downloading rpm from the website and just installing with zypper in?
For updating, I had a problem on another Leap PC. This had TeamViewer 12 installed beforehand, though it was done using rpm -iv. I thought one updated rpm-installed packages just like any other individual package: “zypper up package_name.rpm”. But doing this made console go idle without showing any output nor seemingly doing anything, and ultimately system froze. Had to force shut down.
It’d be just the 2nd or 3rd time I ever use TeamViewer, so… should I be very cautious when using TeamViewer? Closing all other programs, putting all my files and data somewhere else, rebooting after closing TeamViewer, etc, etc… Can I become exploitable even if I’m the one accessing a remote PC?
AFAIK there are no openSUSE repos for Teamviewer.
Yet, download the rpm to (f.e.) ~/Downloads and use zypper to install it from that folder. Zypper will query the repos for deps.
But, since Tv is proprietary and will never appear in a repo, you’d have to update it manually ( or create a local repo that you update manually ). So, since I’m a FOSS person, I wonder whether you considered FOSS solutions to achieve what you’re trying to use Tv for ?
For updating, I had a problem on another Leap PC. This had TeamViewer 12 installed beforehand, though it was done using rpm -iv. I thought one updated rpm-installed packages just like any other individual package: “zypper up package_name.rpm”. But doing this made console go idle without showing any output nor seemingly doing anything, and ultimately system froze. Had to force shut down. Any help?
Do TeamViewer FOSS equivalents even exist? And even if they did users in this place are Windows users of course, so they officially rely on TeamViewer…
Looking at the TeamViewer feature list I would guess that, a direct FOSS equivalent is not available.
Within the Linux FOSS world, things such as the KDE Kontact suite together with products such as the Kolab collaboration platform from the Swiss company Kolab Systems AG, address some of the things which TeamViewer does but, not the following:
Multi-platform;
Computer management;
User and device management;
Chat;
VoIP;
Terminal Server support;
Mass deployment;
Remote control;
Connection to mobile devices;
Video calls.
Within the SUSE world (not openSUSE), there is a Salt-based system administrator tool for the management of (thousands of) systems.
@malcolmlewis:
Thanks for fixing the typo in title. I did realize just after first post, but normal users seemingly have no permissions to change that.
Finally, could someone help with this?
2) For updating, I had a problem on another Leap PC. This had TeamViewer 12 installed beforehand, though it was done using rpm -iv. I thought one updated rpm-installed packages just like any other individual package: “zypper up package_name.rpm”. But doing this made console go idle without showing any output nor seemingly doing anything, and ultimately system froze. Had to force shut down. Any help? Or is it actually something for TeamViewer support?
“zypper update” works correctly if and only if the package vendor is listed in ‘/etc/zypp/vendors.d’.
For the case of a non-FOSS application, it is usually more reliable to use either “zypper install” or “rpm --install” to update the RPM package.
You should also use “zypper verify” (possibly with the “–details” option) to check that, everything is OK with the dependencies of the installed packages.
“rpm --verify” does the same.
You should also check for any remaining issues which may be lurking undetected in the system, by executing the openSUSE “rcrpmconfigcheck” script from a ‘root’ user prompt.
Trying with “zypper in” resulted in an error. I cannot recall the exact output of course, but the idea was similar to that when trying to use “rpm -iv” to update a package instead of “rpm -u”:
there’s already a version of the package installed.
I use teamviewer sometimes, mostly when the remote end has nothing else available.
I would not recommend the rpms for two reasons. One, it installs a system daemon which runs as root. If you are paranoid, you do not want this. Of course, if you are really paranoid, you would not even touch teamviewer because it is a binary from an untrusted source. Anyway, just download the tar.gz or tar.xz and unpack that to ~/bin/teamviewer13 and run it from there. You may have to install some obscure 32-bit dependencies via zypper to make teamviewer run. Second reason for not using the rpm is simply that you do not want to update. Teamviewer can get very pecky when it comes to version mismatches. Sometimes you have to match the version of the remote partner. Who, in turn, might not have the latest version but something as old as 7 or 8. I have all version starting from 7 in my local bin directory.
Mine may be the same case: remote ends are Windows users and know anything else (nor they trust anything else ironically…) but TeamViewer. So sooner or later I’d need to use it even if there existed a FOSS equivalent.
Their website mentions that, for the tar.xz package, it can be well run just as normal user, but one however one should run a “tv-libraries” executable thing included inside the package once extracted as root to check for missing dependencies. WTH!? Despite what website says, do you think it’s really safe to run that thing as root?
So if I download current TeamViewer 13 on Leap now but remote Windows client has TeamViewerQS (quick support) version 12, will it be incompatible?
There is no need to run anything as root with the tar package. Just unpack it and try to run the included teamviewer executable. It may hit some missing dependencies which you then install via zypper. There is only a handful of them and it is fairly easy to figure out.
I think the version mismatch depends on which side initiates the connection, ie requests remote assistance. I really cannot remember which one can be old while the other needs to be updated. Just try and fetch the right version when you need it. The good news is, when you managed to get one teamviewer version running, all of them will work. So, two steps: get the current version running without root privs, install required libs via zypper, then afterwards get older versions as you go.
Wait, so you’re saying you ran just the teamviewer executable without even running the tv-setup one?
Did you get a chance to check the mentioned link above by chance?
Linux TeamViewer 13 is a preview and not full functional yet. Some of the advanced feature simply are not there. But I have run 12 as a client of 13 running on Windows and it works well (note still on 42.2)
Yep, just cd teamviewer && ./teamviewer, no setup, running just as my non-root user.
The checklibs function is just a helper. It may tell you about missing libs but you would still need to find the actual package name. Anyway, IIRC, you need the 32-bit versions of old libpng, old libjpeg, and a few xorg libs. Let me see if I can spot them by name in the package list
libpng12-0-32bit
libjpeg62-32bit
libXtst6-32bit
Do not quote me one these but I think they were the ones I installed with zypper. The png/jpeg libs are especially nasty as teamviewer will happily start without them but then there will be icons and buttons missing in the app.
Finally, have you already tried recent TeamViewer 13 tar.xz one by chance? The TeamViewer website mentions nothing about it, but after searching around internet (and as previously mentioned here) it looks like version 13 at least for Linux is indeed still beta instead of stable! Windows one is the one being already stable…
Good point. I did not even notice the “Preview” badge on the download page. Anyway, downloaded the 64-bit (finally!) tar.xz, unzipped to ~/bin/teamviewer13, and did a simple cd ~/bin/teamviewer13 && ./teamviewer. Starts up fine, looks much better than the older versions. Will try sometime next week with support clients. I think you should go for 13 and maybe you will not need the 32-bit libs anymore. You may still need old versions of libpng and libjpeg, just try and see.
Have you had chance to test TeamViewer 13 beta yet? Last time I tested on Leap it was no surprise it’s still marked as beta: missing buttons and other bugs I can’t remember that version 12 did not have. Strongly wondering how long it’ll take for 13 for Linux to go stable once and for all…
And, just out of curiosity, do you happen to have a tar.xz for TeamViewer 12 64 bit? The only one available in TeamViewer website in older versions section is 32 bit. Hope no rules are being broken here, the TeamViewer package has always been free to download…