Posts Tagged ‘tv 6’

New version of Teamviewer 8 beta for GNU / Linux is out

Monday, January 28th, 2013

I had to login to a Windows host, after a friend handed in his Teamviewer ID and pass. I tried connecting few times and connection failed every time. It was not very likely it is a network problem as I have pretty good internet bandwidth here. I ask him what is his teamviewer, release and it turned out he is using TeamViewer 8. Just few months ago I've updated my teamviewer from TV 6 to TV 7 after finally Teamviewer 7 was launched for Linux. I check immediately TeamViewer website, but this time (TeamViewer GmbH – the vendor company of TV) has launched TV 8 for Linux in parallel with launching TV 8  for Windows.

Of course like often in Linux it is not all perfect TeamViewer 8 version is still in beta testing stage. I've downloaded and updated my (64 bit) teamviewer 7 to teamviewer 8 using the Deb binary, i.e.:

# wget http://www.teamviewer.com/download/version_8x/teamviewer_linux_x64.deb
.....
# dpkg -i teamviewer_linux_x64.deb
...
....

Just like previous TeamViewer, releases, the program launches via wine, so teamviewer_linux_x64.deb depends on working wine Windows emulator.
There are minor difference in graphic interface but no so significant changes from previous release.

TeamViewer beta 8 ver on Debian GNU linux screenshot

I used it to connect to remote Windows 8 host and experienced random issues with typing some characters from keyboard remotely, though I'm not sure if this was due to some bug of the TV 8 beta release or it is due to fact the Win host was infested with viruses.
Just for some convenience if I further need it, I've also made mirror of 32 bit TeamViewer 8 beta here and 64 bit TeamViewer 8 beta mirror here.

 

Finally TeamViewer 7 release for GNU / Linux is available

Thursday, March 29th, 2012

 

TeamViewer 7 Debian GNU / Linux released, my desktop screenshot

After a long time of inavailability, finally TeamViewer 7 for GNU / Linux is out!

Here is the short TeamViewer 7 Linux release note :

In our TeamViewer download area you will now find TeamViewer 7 for Linux.
The final version includes a selection of new features for Linux, e. g. an integrated screenshot feature and the possibility of saving individual connection settings per computer.
You can now establish cross platform connections with other computers running version 7 and hold online meetings and presentations with up to 25 participants.

We wish you best continued success with TeamViewer!

Well, guys it was about time, even later than that… Until now I've so many times experienced troubles with Windows machines which I had to administrate remotely and they only had a TeamViewer 7 installed (a real, real pain in the ass).

The issue comes cause TeamViewer 6 is incompatible with 7 and just until very recently only TV 6 for Linux was available, so trying to access a 7 install directly from Linux was impossible.
Hence to access TeamViewer 7 Windows install, I had to use either a fresh Windows copy with TeamViewer 7 installed or a Virtual Machine like (Qemu, VirtualBox) with Windows version installed in it.
Often back then, when I had to fix remotely a Windows machine behind a firewall, I had to instruct the machine owners to replace the TeamViewer 7 with TeamViewer 6 in order to be able to easily access the remote host from my Debian Linux.

I still remember, it was quite a stuggle to find a link to a Windows .exe install file for TeamViewer 6.

Now thanksfully, TeamViewer guys are starting to make it easier for the user who would for some reason want to stick to older TV version.
I've noticed on TeamViewer's website there is already a new TeamViewer download page offering for download all the old teamviewer version – 1.x, 2.x, 3.x, 4.x, 5.x, 6.x

One example, where old teamviewer release is useful is if you want to run teamviewer on older hardware or old OS (MS Windows 98 or old Linux distro).

I've made a mirror of teamviewer 6 for Debian / Ubuntu amd 32 and 64 bit versions along with all the OS available TeamViewer version 6 and 7, for the sake of preserving it if one day link to old versions of Teamviewer disappear from their website.

Here are the TeamViewer mirrored files:

Below you see a screenshot of teamviewer 7 running on my Debian Squeeze 🙂

TeamViewer 7 Debian GNU / Linux released, my desktop screenshot

It is great teamviewer produced a Linux working application, however if you run it you realize just like the previous releases TeamViewer is not natively supposed (compiled) to run on GNU / Linux OS but uses wine (windows emulator) to launch through…
Instead of porting the application to be natively for the Linux distros once again with this new release, teamviewer developers just "hacked" it to run on top of windows emulation. Though this is working its performance, is probably a bit degraded and it depends on having install on the Linux host a bunch of useless packages which wine depends on.
Besides that even if it "works" on Linux , TeamViewer has still non-free software essense. I still use it because unfortunately, I don't know of a better remote access program capable to connect to servers behind NAT / machines located behind a tight firewalled routers.
If only (I knew of?) a TeamViewer free software / open source equivalent
I will be glad to hear if someone know a (free software / open source) TeamViewer like program able to access remote hosts with no a real (public inet) IP address?P.S.: By similar TV program I don't mean VNC, UltraVNC and this kind of other VNC derivative programs but mean close TeamViewer alternative.