It’s raining where I am but the sun is most certainly shining in my head: Gtalk users on Linux can finally use both voice and video chat. Adding such support has been Google’s top video chat request
Head over to Gmail.com/videochat to download the plugin. It’s even packaged up in a neat .deb!
So, why the wait? Google engineer Justin Uberti talks about the trouble the Linux port posed: "This release required significant engineering to develop an all-new video rendering solution and an all-new PulseAudio-based audio handler, along with work to support 64-bit and countless webcam compatibility tests. We spent a lot of effort to make it fully feature-complete, with all the same goodies as the Windows and Mac versions, and we’re happy to now support Google voice and video now on all major desktop platforms."
For SUSE or Fedora users wanting a slice of the action fear not – he also says that “[they’re] planning on adding RPM support soon as well.”