I need to join Microsoft Lync Attendee online meetings, mostly as a participant (not host).
Is there a way I can configure Lync Attendee, or preferably another open source client to do the same?
NOTE: Although I do need Lync support and appreciate the help, the question here is about the Lync Attendee....their online audio/video conferencing client.
Actually it is not possible to run the Lync client on Linux. The "lync Web app" client does not work on Linux even with the binaries of the mono project. For the time being Microsoft doesn't say if they have it on their road map.
There are third party Linux clients (including one that Microsoft qualified, the snom embedded client that does presence and enterprise voice). The protocol documentation makes it possible for the Linux community to build such clients. There is no Microsoft built full client, but the Microsoft OWA web client is supported on Linux and delivers IM and Presence.
You can try The SIPE Project, which is a third-party Pidgin plugin for Microsoft LCS/OCS.
The SIPE project develops a third-party plugin for the Pidgin multi-protocol instant messenger. It implements the extended version of SIP/SIMPLE used by various products such as Microsoft Office Communications Server, Reuters Messaging, Microsoft Live Communications Server. With this plugin you should be able to replace your Microsoft Office Communicator client with Pidgin.
It is not recommended to compile the source code yourself. Experience has shown that it is difficult to get all prerequisites correctly in place, especially for new Linux users. Instead you should use the ready-to-use installation packages which most OS distributions offer under the name pidgin-sipe.
The snom enterprise solution utilizes the comprehensive unified communications functionality of our Unified Communications partners' solutions to provide large scale enterprises and corporations with a complete communications system: snom devices are compatible with both of these partner’s unified communications solutions whilst remaining as fully functional and interoperable devices in their own right.
This means that not only can you take full advantage of all the rich presence, video conferencing and communications management strengths of unified communications, but you can also sleep easy in the knowledge that if you decide to switch to a different enterprise level solution in the future, you will not need to ditch the phones.
Also, it seems like Pidgin, is being mentioned a lot with regards to Lync.
Pidgin is a chat program which lets you log in to accounts on multiple chat networks simultaneously. This means that you can be chatting with friends on MSN, talking to a friend on Google Talk, and sitting in a Yahoo chat room all at the same time.
Pidgin runs on Windows, Linux, and other UNIX operating systems.
Sources, and more information:
It is possible on Ubuntu 32 bit, Ubuntu 64 bit, SUSE, Red Hat, Cent OS
Look for Lync On Linux.
This does seem to work now, using the sipe-collab ppa. I've managed to connect to lync conferences, using pidgin running on Ubuntu 14.04LTS (with some personal modifications to get some 16.04 features), and it works.
see https://launchpad.net/~sipe-collab and https://launchpad.net/~sipe-collab/+archive/ubuntu/ppa
I use http://ppa.launchpad.net/sipe-collab/ppa/ubuntu trusty
I have:-
I believe I can send sound, but as I have no decent mic, apart from having to mute my mic to prevent static noise being sent to all other participants in a meeting, I've not tested that bit.
Join a Lync meeting using the Accounts/<account>/Join scheduled conference menu, then enter the link that was sent to you under the link.
There is no Lync Attendee client developed specially for Ubuntu. In Ubuntu your only real option is the Lync Web App (which is only meeting join, no IM/Presence, Conferencing or Voice). To use it you will need an alternative to Microsoft Silverlight. This is Moonlight. Use the instructions from the link attached to install or follow this answer.
One possible alternative that I use is to have a Windows VM (using Virtualbox) with Lync installed in it and run it in "Seamless" mode in Virtualbox so that the Lync window appears as a separate window on your Ubuntu desktop. Slightly complicated, but it's the best workaround I could find for your/our problem.
