I am very happy to use QubesOS which I already have for several weeks. But there are two problems that are of major concern to me.
One thing is related to Google Meet. I have qube based on Debian with Firefox ESR. This is the qube from which I run Google Meet in the web browser. It has initial memory 800 MB and max memory 8000 MB, with 8 VCPUs. It is included in memory balancing. And it has private storage max size of 2048 MiB (currently used about 700 MiB).
I have also increased sys-usb settings to be initial & max memory of 2048 MB, instead of default 300 MB. I have 2 VCPUs but Iāve tried more. Itās not included in memory balancing.
And the problem is that my video is āshakingā which looks very bad to other users of Google Meet that I talk with. So I need to talk without my video enabled.
What else can I try, other than increasing memory of both qubes and VCPUs of my qube?
I have good hardware, based on Lenovo T430, bought from Nitropad, with almost all paid hardware features that were available.
Iād like to turn this to question: if someone knows USB webcam that is fast and reliable with Qubes using typical browser-based online conferencing, please let me know, Iāll buy it.
Try to identify the cause. Iād check the webcamās performance in another app on the same VM. If itās fine, then the problem is Google Meet or Firefox ESR. Try a desktop webcam app or Chromium.
If itās similar quality in all apps, then make sure you have the appropriate driver. Maybe you need a proprietary one? Then try in a qube based on another template.
If you are connecting your webcam to your debian qube via a sys-usb qube, try connecting the pci device directly to the debian qube.
Iām not an expert but provided there are decent linux drivers for the webcam, I think it should work just fine.
I have created new qube with default parameters (I mean 4000 MB as max memory and 2 VCPUs) and the video looks ok. But when I try to record a video, the ācheeseā application stops after about 5 seconds (video recording freezes).
Let me clarify one thing - this is camera built into the laptop, itās not external one. I just thought that internally it uses USB anyway. Thanks!
@newqubesosuser canyou try, in that new fresh qube, installing VLC and then attaching the webcam to the Qube, then using /dev/video0 as input/capture in VLC.
does it look OK ?
Can you also check out the media/codec in that same running VLC and see whats showing for frame rate, display resolution and any dropped frame count
Basically what we are trying to ascertain is there a bottleneck on the USB input to the Qube, or / as well as a misconfig in V4L2 input.
Personally, my bet is on a āproblemā in Firefox ESR running google meet (eg, deploy chromium in a Qube and see what happens then)
Sorry to horn in, but I would say that my first generation Logitech C920 does the best of the ones that I have tried. I have lesser webcams (some older generation Logitech, some built-ins on some laptops - not generally the best option) that work much more piecemeal. The newer Logitech C920 may not be truly equivalent to my older model, which means we need to buy one just to test.
I have experience with Zoom, Google Meet, a few other usages of webcam under Qubes (Webex or MS Teams trials, Indeedās video conferencing offering for job interviewing). For example: Zoom most often works with the C920 without trouble, an older Logitech (C615) can sometimes work as well but itās anything but effortless (I could post much about my experiences with several USB-connected digital cameras, I may post about it further someday). For Google Meet, Iāve had less issues even getting the C615 to work.
None of them have had quite the āshakeā that is described by the main poster. USB device loadout might be useful to ask about - it isnāt like the webcam is isolated to just the camera & the host controller (Iād imagine) & that may play into the difficulties.
Funny I just bought C920 and itās totally useless, the Qubes USBIP stack totally destroys it. It works (badly) maybe 1/3 connects, then it just drops and dies.
This is not a priority for me, so Iām just waiting for Qubes Video Companion to iron itself out.
Donāt get me wrong! I know exactly what you mean with those descriptions, and I found them spot on. Iām just too old for playing with computers. I can tolerate some tweaking, but if something doesnāt work rock solid, Iām not using it.
So Iāve created new qube and assigned twice as much memory as by default, i.e. 8000 MB RAM instead of 4000 MB. And Iāve installed VLC on qube. (But it uses around 2 GB RAM).
Then done ācapture deviceā with āvideo device nameā set as /dev/video0. The video looks fine. The quality is a bit bad but there are no ājumpsā in the picture, as on Google Meet.
Codec from ācurrent media informationā shows for āstream 0ā the following value: 'Codec: Packed YUV 4:2:2, Y:U:Y:V (YUY2)" for location āv4l2:///dev/video0ā. It says āvideo resolution: 800x448ā, āframe rate: 15ā but shows no information about dropped frame count. āStatisticsā tab shows only zero values.
It looks like Qubes Video Companion is still being tested and isnāt in the contrib repo, despite what the github page says.
But if your picture quality is acceptable in VLC then I assume the problem is Google Meet or Firefox ESR. Does the video still jump if using Chromium? If youāre keen on sticking with Firefox, maybe try the snap version.as itās more up-to-date.
Thanks. I have tried with Chromium and had the same problem. But I started wondering whether itās really problem with the camera because I also noticed the occasional problems with the video of people I was talking with, not just mine. Also, I hear very short noise when this problem occurs. When I was showing my screen and accessing other tabs from the web browser (while sharing them) I didnāt hear that āclickā noise.
May I ask you to answer, please? Or at least suggest me what more I should check/verify? This problem and the one with HP printer are the only two things that prevent me from using QubesOS as day to day operating system. Thank you!
