Installing and Upgrading Zoom desktop client on Linux

[MerricksMan]

Preface

I just stumble across a non-legit signing cert the other day while wanting to update the Zoom client on Debian and Red Hat like distros. I was wondering if Zoom Inc. is to lazy to provide their Linux User base a valid public signing key for their packages (deb and rpm). Nevertheless, the key just arrived today and with a little tweaking the install should run through smoothly. So for all those people who want to upgrade or install the Zoom desktop client onto lots of Linux desktop machines feel free to follow the below steps. Any Feedback is always appreciated.

A. For Debian, Ubuntu, Mint like distros

1. Change to a Download directory

cd ~/Downloads

2. Get the new public signing key

wget -O package-signing-key.pub https://zoom.us/linux/download/pubkey?version=5-12-6

 3. Check the public signing key

gpg --show-keys package-signing-key.pub

4. Import the key

sudo gpg --import package-signing-key.pub

5. Get the latest, newest and upgraded Zoom DEB-Package

wget https://zoom.us/client/latest/zoom_amd64.deb

6. Install the Zoom DEB-Package

sudo apt install ./zoom_amd64.deb

7. Check if the Client starts and closes properly

zoom &

8. Happy Zooming

Removal (will purge the depending packages too)

sudo apt autoremove zoom --purge

Side Note:

I had an old client which was removed properly during the install. So there is no need to remove it in the first place. But it wouldn't matter if you do, so no worries.

Of course is it possible to automate and schedule things with a nice script for goodness sake. Alternatives might be snap packages and flatpaks. But I am to old school. I stick with debs and rpms and old rotting repositories for now 😉

B. For Red Hat, Fedora, RHEL, Oracle Linux, Alma, Rocky, Centos like distros

1. Change to a Download directory

cd ~/Downloads

2. Get the new public signing key

wget -O package-signing-key.pub https://zoom.us/linux/download/pubkey?version=5-12-6

 3. Check the public signing key

gpg --show-keys package-signing-key.pub

4. Import the key

sudo rpm --import package-signing-key.pub

5. Get the latest, newest and upgraded Zoom RPM-Package

wget https://zoom.us/client/latest/zoom_x86_64.rpm

6. Install the Zoom RPM-Package

sudo dnf localinstall zoom_x86_64.rpm

7. Check if the Client starts and closes properly

zoom &

8. Happy Zooming

Removal (will purge the depending packages too)

sudo dnf erase zoom

 

C. For Snap package enthusiasts

Install the latest Zoom Client with snapd under Ubuntu 22.04 or Distribution who are supporting SNAP Packages

sudo snap install zoom-client

Upgrade Zoom Client (Snap Package)

sudo snap refresh zoom-client

Remove Zoom Client (Snap Package)

sudo snap remove zoom-client

No guarantees for the above commands. If you find typos or errors let me know. The above links might change too over time.

[jerryb8]

Thanks very much for this!

[ArthurTyde]

Running perfectly on Rocky Linux 9.2 using a brand new Logitech HD pro webcam.  Impressive work, well done.

[wolfram-cti]

RHEL 8.8, new installation: program does not run for a user. Fails when started by root:

[root@d1 Download]# zoom &
[1] 347599
ZoomLauncher started.
Zoom path is: /opt/zoom
cmd line:
Start subprocess: /opt/zoom/zoom sucessfully, process pid: 347606
Can't load/root/.config/zoomus.conf
[root@d1 Download]# XDG_RUNTIME_DIR (/run/user/1000) is not owned by us (uid 0), but by uid 1000! (This could e.g. happen if you try to connect to a non-root PulseAudio as a root user, over the native protocol. Don't do that.)
No PulseAudio daemon running, or not running as session daemon.
Class App Lib Possible Culprit Flags
resip::Connection 656 656
resip::Data 36 36
resip::DnsResult 1080 1080
resip::Headers 1 1
resip::MsgHeaderScanner 40 40
resip::SipMessage 5224 5224
resip::TransportSelector 896 896
resip::Tuple 128 128
resip::UdpTransport 1144 1144
resip::GenericIPAddress 28 28

zoom started.
[0930/121133.805644:ERROR:zygote_host_impl_linux.cc(90)] Running as root without --no-sandbox is not supported. See https://crbug.com/638180.
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR (/run/user/1000) is not owned by us (uid 0), but by uid 1000! (This could e.g. happen if you try to connect to a non-root PulseAudio as a root user, over the native protocol. Don't do that.)
No PulseAudio daemon running, or not running as session daemon.
Something went wrong while running zoom, exit code is 1.
ZoomLauncher exit.
^C
[1]+ Done zoom
[root@d1 Download]#

Sorry to report ...

[MerricksMan]

Hi Wolfram-cti,

no worries. It  looks like you want to start the Zoom client application as root user on a Linux server environment (RHEL 8.8) within the wrong gnome session. That's not a good idea at all.

Start the Zoom Client as standard user in the gnome-terminal of the correspondent gnome desktop user session.

Create a standard user first if you don't have one. See Chapter 18ff  RHEL8 Doc

Hint: During the installation of RHEL 8.x the guided process (server with desktop gui) is normally proposing to create a standard user.

Conclusion: Root should only be used for installing, configuring and setup your system. Never run user client application from it. In modern times the concepts and usage of 'sudo' is highly recommended to admin a Linux operation system.

Depending on the Linux Server Kernel support for recording devices (driver for cams and sound) there might be overall the consideration to better use a Linux Desktop solution (e.g. Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, openSuSE, ...) instead of choosing a Server system. My documentations only shows how to install and start the Zoom client software in general on common Linuxes.

Good luck.